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Old 03-30-2009, 02:40 PM   #358
RainMaker
General Manager
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Chicago, IL
Quote:
Originally Posted by molson View Post
I don't know anything about the case, but it's very common for someone to plead guilty to one charge, in exchange for others involving the same incident to be dropped. Especially in a license/insurance situation where you'd rather have someone get in regulation than collect a fine.

For example, a plea offer for the 5 charges like that might be - plead guilty to all 5 charges, and sentencing will be set out. If you get your license/insurance/registration current by sentencing, the state agrees to dismiss all of those charges, and the red light violation, leaving you only with the u-turn ticket. That saves everyone a lot of time, and you encouraged the driver to hustle and get shit taken care of. If they get in regulation, they get off easy. If they don't, they get hammered with 5 charges at sentencing.

A enormous % of criminal charges are dropped/reduced. Neither prosecutors nor police have access to infinite resources.

In one typical prosecutor's office, the max amount of misdemeanor jury trials that could be held in a week because of staff/scheduling limitations is 3. Where that same week, maybe 500 cases are actually set for jury trial. The criminals have the bargaining advantage with those odds.

The problem is that no one gets arrested for what she did. They were minor traffic violations and this guy went on a power trip. He's a pile of shit. Let him go play ego-maniac in a mall or something.
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