Supreme Court expands defendant’s rights in plea deals
In two 5-4 decisions, the Supreme Court rules that defendants in criminal cases have a constitutional right to a competent lawyer’s advice when deciding whether to accept a plea deal.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-plea-20120322,0,2067347.story
It is really amazing to me the attitude of some of these so-called ‘justices’:
The ruling drew a sharply worded dissent from Justice Antonin Scalia, who took the unusual step of expressing his disagreement in the courtroom. He angrily called the court’s rulings a “judicially invented right to effective plea bargaining.”
The decisions were “a vast departure from our past cases” and would lead to endless litigation, he warned.
“Until today, no one has thought that there is a constitutional right to a plea bargain,” Scalia added.
This, despite “…about 97% of federal convictions and 94% of state convictions result from guilty pleas”. So, Scalia would rather stay in la la land where one can fantasize that every defendant has perfect knowledge, no prosecutor ever takes advantage of a public defender and no public defender is a fucking idiot. Thankfully, the majority saw fit to acknowledge reality and admit that there is a massive shadow ‘justice’ system that works diligently (and punishes severely if bypassed) to avoid any sort of trial.
Shockingly, Roberts, Thomas and Alito joined with Scalia in choosing to remain in la la land.
Now, if we could only find a way to address the situation where the innocent are caught up in our ‘justice’ system and foolishly elect to assume that a trial will prove their innocence.
