This case study analysis focuses on one of two cases featured in the NPR story High Court Expands Defendant’s Plea Bargain Rights, March 2012.
In the case of Anthony Cooper, he was charged with assault with intent to murder. In March 2003 Mr. Cooper shot Kali Mundy four times. All four shots that hit Ms. Mundy were below the waist, she survived. Cooper was arrested and charged. The state of Michigan offered Cooper a plea bargain of 51-85 months if he pled guilty to Assault with Intent to Murder. On the advice of his lawyer, Cooper rejected the deal. His lawyer told him that Michigan law would not permit an attempted murder conviction for wounds that were below the waist. The lawyer was wrong. The lawyer was hoping that Cooper would receive
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If a defendant has a lawyer that can not or does not provide accurate information or advice the defendant has the right to prove that they would have accepted the initial plea deal if given proper counsel. I personally feel that this is a fair and just ruling. Although the NPR story highlights just two cases, I am sure that inept advice is given to many people all over the country on a daily basis. If you can not rely on your appointed/hired defense attorney to give you sound and accurate advice, how can you navigate your case? Most people are not familiar enough with the intricacies of the law to make an informed decision about whether to go to trial or accept a plea bargain. It could be difficult to circumvent the people that were ‘rolling the dice’ by going to trial and now want the initial plea deal because they are unhappy with the outcome of the trial. This could be avoided by making sure all plea deals are presented in writing or in open court on the record, so you can be sure that the defendant is aware of the deal and that they understand the terms and conditions of it. If a defendant decides to go to trial they should sign a copy of any plea deals that were offered, so they know that these deals will be off the table unless they can prove some sort of negligence by their
The conviction of guilty offenders when adhering to the guidelines of the NSW criminal trial process is not difficult based on the presumption of innocence. However, due to features of the criminal trial process, established by the adversarial system of trial, cases can often involve copious amounts of time and money, particularly evident in the case of R vs Rogerson and McNamara where factors such as time and money are demonstrated to be in excess. In addition, characteristics of the adversarial system such as plea bargaining has the power to hinder convictions due to the accused having the authority to hire experienced and expensive lawyers to argue their case, hence maintaining their innocence.
Schmalleleger, F. (2002). Criminal Law Today: An Introduction with capstone cases. (2nd edition) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall
A plea bargain is compliance between a prosecutor and defendant in which the accused offender agrees to plead guilty in return for some compromise from the prosecutor. The New Jim Crow, explains how most Americans have no clue on how common it is for people to be prosecuted without proper legal representation and are sentenced to jail when innocent out of fear. Tens of thousands of poor people go to jail every year without ever talking to a lawyer that could possibly help them. Over four decades ago, the American Supreme Court ruled that low-income people who are accused of serious crimes are entitled to council, but thousands of people are processed through America’s courts annually with a low resource lawyer, or no lawyer at all. Sometimes
Criticism of plea bargaining mainly stems from two aspects. First, on the defendant’s aspect, a plea bargain can coerce
Smith, C. E. (2004). Public defenders. In T. Hall, U.S. Legal System (pp. 567-572-). [Ebscohost]. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook
By using plea bargain may be an agreeing to many things. It is very common in a plea bargain with first time offenders that are being accused with a less serious crime to use plead deals, so they can only be sentenced...
Authors Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld founded the innocence project at a law school in New York City, which has assisted in the exoneration of an astonishing number of innocent individuals. As legal aid lawyers, they blithely engaged in conflicts that implicated
Texas houses the largest prison population in the nation (National News). I am not surprised by this statement. I agree with Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson’s statement, "Texas has always been a law and order state, and the prison system has been known as a tough system”. In my opinion, Texas has high crime statistics because of the high rate of re-offenders. According to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, “four of ten offenders released from prison will be reincarcerated after three years”. Offenders are leaving prison without being rehabilitated for the crime they committed.
Garrett, Brandon. Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2011. 86. Print.
Pezdek, K. (2012, March). A Preliminary Study of How Plea Bargaining Decisions by Prosecution and Defense Attorneys Are Affected by Eyewitness Factors. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/238136.pdf
punished for their crimes at all. It is as simple as that. Granted, a plea
6. Neubauer, D.W. (2002). America’s Courts and the Criminal Justice System. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth: Thomson Learning.
For decades, we have been made to believe that criminals are people who have done harm to our society, violating the laws of the land, and don 't deserve a second chance. They should be locked away, and the keys should throw away. Unfortunately, today, our world is full of crimes and our system is getting overcrowded with criminals. However, with recent laws like the plea bargain proofs that there is hope and a way out to every situation. A plea bargain can be defined as negotiations during a criminal trial between the prosecutor and the defendant which result in a more lenient sentence than would have been recommended with the original charge (Farlex). Some would say that the use, or abuse, of the plea bargain, allows criminals
"Know the Cases." Innocence Project. Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, n.d. Web. 1 Mar 2011. .
...Available By: Acker, James. Contemporary Justice Review, Sep2008, Vol. 11 Issue 3, p287-289, 3p; DOI: 10.1080/10282580802295625