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InvisibleSimplepowa
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I Turned Down 3 Years in Prison and Ended Up With 15 to Life
    #19236210 - 12/06/13 11:54 AM (10 years, 1 month ago)

December 5, 2013 - By Anthony Papa

Today a new report by Human Rights Watch titled  “An Offer You Can’t Refuse” revealed that only three percent of U.S. drug defendants in federal cases chose to go to trial instead of pleading guilty in 2012. The report explains that the reason only three percent go to trial is because prosecutors warn defendants that if they refuse the plea and go to trial, they will be charged with a more series crime and end up with a much longer sentence.

Prosecutors live and die for convictions and they use mandatory minimum sentencing as a prosecutorial tool to secure convictions and get people to plead guilty without getting their right to a fair trial.

People’s fear of angering prosecutors by going to trial is real. The reports shows that defendants who chose to exercise their constitutional rights to go to trial routinely face sentences three times greater than the original plea deals.  This is an astounding revelation.

I know the pressure to take a deal and the disastrous consequences of taking my case to trial. In 1985 I refused a plea deal of three years and end up being sentenced to 15 years to life under the mandatory provisions of New York’s Rockefeller Drug Laws.

I was duped into delivering an envelope containing four ounces of cocaine for $500 by a bowling buddy. During the criminal proceedings the district attorney’s office discovered I was not a drug dealer but nevertheless, they wanted to secure a conviction.

During the trial the assistant district attorney approached me and asked how old my daughter was.  I told him she was seven years old.  He told me if I chose to go to trial the next time I would see my daughter is when she was 22, take the plea offer of three years to life because you will never win.  I was afraid of being away from my wife and daughter for three years. I refused the offer and a few days later I was convicted and sentenced to 15 years to life.  I could not believe it.

Not taking the plea deal of three years to life was the biggest mistake of my life. Because I refused the offer I was sentenced to more than five times the amount of time I was offered in the plea bargain. During my years of imprisonment I tried to commit suicide, I was stuck with a knife, and I was beat down with a pipe.

But nothing hurt me more than my separation from my daughter, Stephanie. Her child-like innocence gave me the will to live when I wanted to die.

Although I tried to keep a relationship with her, she suffered greatly from my prison sentence. No child should have experienced the horrible conditions she had to go through, such as body searches, long waiting lines and abusive correction officers.

Little by little, her beautiful child-like demeanor disappeared, and was replaced with a sadness and depression generally seen in a much older person. By the time she was 12, she had become psychologically damaged, and so traumatized by the prison experience that she could no longer visit me.

From my relationship with my daughter I learned that prison did not end at the wall that separated me from society.  It went far beyond it, reaching loved ones and friends of those incarcerated.  When I refused the plea offer my life changed forever.

I commend Human Rights Watch for exposing how prosecutors get drug defendants to accept plea bargains by charging them with extraordinary long sentences under mandatory minimums. It is time to end harsh mandatory minimums that both destroy lives and may a mockery of our “justice” system.

Anthony Papa is the media relations manager for the Drug Policy Alliance and author of 15 to Life: How I Painted my Way to Freedom.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/blog/i-turned-down-3-years-prison-and-ended-15-life


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OfflineImmortal Jellyfish
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Re: I Turned Down 3 Years in Prison and Ended Up With 15 to Life [Re: Simplepowa]
    #19236404 - 12/06/13 12:46 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

His poor daughter.


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InvisibleDickhead
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Re: I Turned Down 3 Years in Prison and Ended Up With 15 to Life [Re: Simplepowa]
    #19236579 - 12/06/13 01:27 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

One of the saddest things I've ever read.


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InvisibleCidneyIndole
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Re: I Turned Down 3 Years in Prison and Ended Up With 15 to Life [Re: Simplepowa]
    #19240061 - 12/07/13 09:38 AM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Simplepowa said:
The report explains that the reason only three percent go to trial is because prosecutors warn defendants that if they refuse the plea and go to trial, they will be charged with a more series crime and end up with a much longer sentence.

Prosecutors live and die for convictions and they use mandatory minimum sentencing as a prosecutorial tool to secure convictions and get people to plead guilty without getting their right to a fair trial.

People’s fear of angering prosecutors by going to trial is real. The reports shows that defendants who chose to exercise their constitutional rights to go to trial routinely face sentences three times greater than the original plea deals.  This is an astounding revelation.








This is one of those areas in which our system is very broken. This has been on my mind for a long time, and I find it completely sickening. 


You know what the truly sick joke is, in all of this?


When you go for a plea bargain, and plead guilty, you are asked (by the judge) whether your confession is being made of your own free will, and that you have not been coerced, intimidated, etc etc.


And of course, you "have to" answer "yes" in order for the guilty plea to be valid.



What I want to know is what kind of warped logic you have to employ, to not consider  it "intimidation" or "coercion" for them to threaten you with far worse charges, and a far lengthier sentence, if you take your right to a fair trial. Isn't that the very definition and essence of intimidation and coercion?


:grrr: :confused: :grrr:


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InvisibleEnlilMDiscord
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Re: I Turned Down 3 Years in Prison and Ended Up With 15 to Life [Re: Simplepowa]
    #19240900 - 12/07/13 01:15 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Plea bargains wouldn't be bargains at all if you got the same sentence that you'd get if convicted at trial.  If that were the case, everyone would roll the dice with a jury.

The system relies on plea bargains in order to process the volume of cases that go through it.  I see nothing wrong with giving guilty people a break if they save the state time and money.


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InvisibleStonehenge
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Re: I Turned Down 3 Years in Prison and Ended Up With 15 to Life [Re: Enlil]
    #19241127 - 12/07/13 02:12 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

>I see nothing wrong with giving guilty people a break if they save the state time and money.

By that logic, giving a huge cash bribe should get you off scott free or at least a much better sentence. After all, you save them time, give them money and are punished by losing your cash. Next thing it will be a price for each crime and only the poor go to prison.


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“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.” (attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville political philosopher Circa 1835)

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InvisibleEnlilMDiscord
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Re: I Turned Down 3 Years in Prison and Ended Up With 15 to Life [Re: Stonehenge]
    #19241165 - 12/07/13 02:19 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Nah.  If someone is guilty of a crime, and they're willing to do the right thing and admit it, there's no reason not to give them a break.

Mr. Papa did a crime that carried a 15 year sentence and he was offered a chance to do only 3 years.  Instead, he took a gamble and ended up getting the sentence he deserved instead of the lesser sentence he could have gotten.  It's his own fault.


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InvisibleOgla
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Re: I Turned Down 3 Years in Prison and Ended Up With 15 to Life [Re: Enlil]
    #19241177 - 12/07/13 02:22 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

i h8 how people who work for the court system get off on screwing people over.  Their bad karma will get them later in life or the next :nono:


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InvisibleEnlilMDiscord
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Re: I Turned Down 3 Years in Prison and Ended Up With 15 to Life [Re: Ogla]
    #19241180 - 12/07/13 02:23 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

There is a fair amount of that, but most of the people who work for the system are there because they are trying to do good for the community.  They certainly aren't there for the pay.


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Offlineallseeingike
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Re: I Turned Down 3 Years in Prison and Ended Up With 15 to Life [Re: Enlil]
    #19241230 - 12/07/13 02:31 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

this is sickening i remember reading this story elsewhere a few years ago and in the comments people were accusing him of being a violent drug cartel and how he should be put to death because he would be  he was probably ready to kill people to protect his 500 dollars


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InvisibleStonehenge
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Re: I Turned Down 3 Years in Prison and Ended Up With 15 to Life [Re: allseeingike] * 1
    #19241290 - 12/07/13 02:41 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

Enlil, you said "I see nothing wrong with giving guilty people a break if they save the state time and money." you said nothing about just pleading guilty. You spoke of saving the state time and money. We all know money talks, if we are not willing to let people buy their way into a lesser sentence then we should not let them plea bargain into a lesser sentence. Plea bargaining is legal extortion.

Turn it around the other way. A guilty person gets off lightly by pleading out. How is that justice? Its all cash register justice so lets quit pretending its anything else.


--------------------
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.” (attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville political philosopher Circa 1835)

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InvisibleEnlilMDiscord
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Re: I Turned Down 3 Years in Prison and Ended Up With 15 to Life [Re: Stonehenge]
    #19241311 - 12/07/13 02:45 PM (10 years, 1 month ago)

That's not turning it around, that's exactly what it is.  Guilty people who admit to being guilty and take their lumps should get a break.  That looks like justice to me.  Admitting one's wrongdoing is a big step in the right direction, and I think it should be encouraged.

I'm fine with replacing a lot of jail sentences with fines, though.  For anything other than violent crimes, I don't see any reason to put someone in jail or prison.


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