alt Hacker NewsI'm having a productive discussion by not letting vague claims slide.
"Unfairly biased most of the time" and "unjust more often than just" are the same claim when discussing legal outcomes. If the system is systematically biased, it produces unjust outcomes. Don't play word games.
And yes, people absolutely have made that claim. The assertion that 98% plea bargain rates represent coercion rather than efficient processing is precisely claiming the system gets it wrong most of the time. The hypothetical about innocent breadwinners forced to plead guilty isn't describing an edge case, it's being presented as how plea bargains function.
If you want to argue the system has some biases that need addressing, fine. That's not what's being argued here. The argument is that plea bargains are inherently coercive and that maintaining innocence should exempt you from parole requirements. That's claiming the system is fundamentally broken, not merely imperfect.
Pick one: is the system broken or just imperfect? Because I'm arguing it's the latter and you lot keep trying to prove the former whilst pretending you're not.
> "Unfairly biased most of the time" and "unjust more often than just" are the same claim when discussing legal outcomes. If the system is systematically biased, it produces unjust outcomes. Don't play word games.
Then that's not an extraordinary claim.
I'm doing my best to avoid word games here.
If someone is claiming that the system is biased always, but not claiming that most outcomes are wrong, that is a reasonable claim.
Calling plea bargains inherently coercive is a reasonable claim. Yes they're broken in some ways.
> The assertion that 98% plea bargain rates represent coercion rather than efficient processing is precisely claiming the system gets it wrong most of the time.
No no no no no no no no. That's not what those words mean.
> Pick one: is the system broken or just imperfect?
Some imperfection will always be there.
But there are important imperfections that could be reasonably fixed, therefore I would say the system is broken. By my definition of broken; yours might be different.
I don't know what "fundamentally broken" means exactly so I won't comment on that term.