On the other hand, a system that just lets judges impose any sentence they want within a wide range without finding any facts is perfectly fine with the Court. There was a nationwide reaction against such systems a few decades ago, when we came to understand that the sentences people were receiving depended as much on which judge they drew as on what they had done and what they had done before.

It is a very strange jurisprudence that says that the more arbitrary system is okay and the more structured system is not.

Seriously, the whole POINT of the matter is that judges are using evidence that a jury of one’s peers has not determined as factually true (so the claim of ‘guilt’ begs the question) to apply punishments. Evidence that often is allowed to be balanced via a lower standard of proof, though even a normal one is handled differently by judges than juries. This is why we have a fact finding jury system. How exactly this is a ‘gnat’ is unclear to me.

(Juries — having their full traditionally role –are not just for the accused btw … they are a way for the people to serve in a judicial capacity. This was deemed a good thing.)

I’m also not aware how this quite connects to plea bargains. If judges had the power to determine facts as HB seems to desire, PBs very well would still be an issue. Studies have shown that attempts to stop PBs have had negative consequences.

Likewise, though I’m surely against unfair PBs (and the matter surely is addressed in the courts, esp. states, to some degree), if there were not quid pro quos, what would be the point for either side to take the risk? Talking about ‘obviously’ guilty defendants, are prosecutors supposed to waste needless resources, when they can avoid them (and perhaps get some useful info too) via PBs? Perhaps this is why defense attys tend not to want to do away with them either.

I agree it’s a shame when the guilty go free based on technicalities, but those pesky constitutional amendments keep getting in the way. Unfortunately, the Court is obligated to enforce them, even when they lead to the “wrong” results.

I also agree that the state’s power to command extortionate plea bargains should be curbed. But I am not sure on what legal basis the Supreme Court could do that.

On the one hand, its Cunningham decision allows manifestly guilty people to have their sentences overturned or radically reduced based on technicalities having nothing to do with guilt or innocence, merely because certain sentencing-related determinations were made by a judge rather than (as is less manageable) by a jury.

Yet, on the other hand, past Supreme Court decisions effectively allow prosecutors to extort guilty pleas from innocent defendants through mechanisms that circumvent rights to a jury trial.

For example, it has upheld the plea bargain, even though plea bargains are often used to present defendants with a Hobson’s Choice: either plead guilty and receive a light sentence, or insist on your right to trial by jury and receive such an immensely longer sentence if you are erroneously convicted that it makes sense to plead guilty even if you are innocent.

Similarly, it has done nothing to stop prosecutors from holding people in jail for longer (pending jury trial for minor crimes) than they would actually be sentenced to if found guilty. When that happens, even a manifestly innocent defendant has a strong incentive to plead guilty.

Why does the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence focus so much on overturning guilty defendants’ convictions on technicalities, while permitting guilty pleas to be extorted from innocent defendants?

How can this make sense to anyone?

The plea bargain should be restricted to protect the innocent. And the whole Booker/Apprendi line of cases should be reversed so that the guilty cannot go free on a technicality.