i hate this prompt honestly - it’s unfair to him for us to put ourselves in that position where we don’t actually have to undergo the pressure that he felt
Realistically if I were in that position I imagine that I would have a very difficult time turning down my boss and the opportunity for career advancement
Not to give a complete cop out answer, but I would never become a prosecutor in the first place, even if the goal were to be a progressive one, in order to avoid this exact situation
Would probably cave. It's how any organization works. If you don't your job is on the line. And it's why we have so many problems in the law, journalism, politics, finance, or any other space filled with strivers or social climbers.
I think prosecutors get a uniformly bad reputation these days, and certainly much of it is deserved for behavior like this. I believe there can be good prosecutors out there, but if I was trying my first homicide case and that was the behavior of my supervisor, I would quit that day and do something else or try to prosecute somewhere else (although it could be tough to get a job if they felt i had a weak stomach.). Caving is simply not an option here
Maybe go to lawyer ethics board, or consult some other experienced authority figure to find out what the options are. Hear from people who have been in this situation before
Just hearing the story makes me want to cry. I can't say with certainty that I would have the courage to stand my ground, but it is hard for me to imagine unjustly ruining someone's life for my own personal career gain.
These are the realities of the justice system as it stands. I don't think cases where defendants lack moral culpability are that anomalous. Which is why I am so disturbed by the thread in my group where someone indicated that innocent people don't take plea deals
This is a heart wrenching story. These realities are so though, as is the story told by our respected colleague about her family. Running through the justice system is really tough, but there must be a system. The best thing that I can imagine is that there should be checks and balances which are desperately lacking in the overall fair trial system.
I'm really annoyed that we keep studying cases/instances that are supposed to garner lots of support for white defendants (like this and the gun/jury nullification case study) but almost all of our other lessons use black trauma (slavery, police brutality, etc) and ask us to debate when these debates over issues centered on black trauma are more contentious.
@Mars there was no indication what the race of the defendant who ran over the man was. And the main portion of today's class was centered around a sympathetic black defendant.
@Mercury, but don't you think that a plea deal for probation would have been better? She admits that she was driving "negligently," and it resulted in a homicide, and as such, probation would have been the punishment that fits the crime. Pleading guilty would not mean that she is guilty of or confessing to the type of moral culpability that would justify the sentence that she got from going to trial.
Sure in theory but the state could easily offer her a plea deal that is much worse than what you have described. Plea deals are not always proportionate to what the defendant "deserves." Again, all of this power is left to prosecutors with perverse incentives
Plea deals are often preferable to trial outcomes for obvious reasons. Doesn't change the fact that they're just perpetuating an entire process that many of us find unjust
I don't recall what plea deal the prosecutor described, but if it is the one that you described above then yes. I am not saying that plea deals are never better than trial for individual defendants. I am saying that the whole system is flawed and this case embodies that prosecutors often prosecute defendants that don't "deserve" it for various reasons and this puts pressure on innocent defendants to plea
There's no way to empirically prove how often this happens but we have a system where innocent defendants after measuring costs and benefits and risks would plead guilty to a crime they didn't commit or at the very least should not be held accountable for (let's say in the eyes of vast majority of society like the facts described by Mr. Fisher).