5 ms·

wouldn't you go into plea bargain if you knew there's 80% chance of conviction of you don't? At some point the high conviction rate acts as a deterrent from no

• acdha 27d ago
  That’s repeating the misunderstanding: the conviction rate is high because the government voluntarily drops or reduces charges when their case is weak. You have to think of it as “80% of the cases the government thought it would win” rather than “80% of all cases ever considered”. What does lead to pleas is the expense of defending a case: if you acknowledge some guilt, you might decide to accept a lesser charge rather than exhaust your finances with no guarantee that you won’t get that lesser charge anyway.