Belkira the Tulip wrote:
Almalieque wrote:
I was waiting for someone to bring this up. Maybe I can get some clarification on this issue.
Forgive me for the lack of legal jargon. Contrary to BT's beliefs, I don't watch court shows and I've never been to court.
From my interpretation, there are limitations (upper and lower bounds)that a person can get for particular crimes. Within those limitations, a person can get varied sentences for the same crime, i.e murder. It was my understanding that part of the reason why the ruling can vary is based on how good of a lawyer you have. In other words, a lawyer can take the information from each case and work it towards their client's favor.
I would say that it is safe to assume that the defendant typically wants to be seen as innocent and the prosecutor wants the defendant to get the max ruling. Because of this, it is the lawyer's job to ensure that s/he doesn't get the max, but something more fair (which is a relative) to the client.
Forgive me for the lack of legal jargon. Contrary to BT's beliefs, I don't watch court shows and I've never been to court.
From my interpretation, there are limitations (upper and lower bounds)that a person can get for particular crimes. Within those limitations, a person can get varied sentences for the same crime, i.e murder. It was my understanding that part of the reason why the ruling can vary is based on how good of a lawyer you have. In other words, a lawyer can take the information from each case and work it towards their client's favor.
I would say that it is safe to assume that the defendant typically wants to be seen as innocent and the prosecutor wants the defendant to get the max ruling. Because of this, it is the lawyer's job to ensure that s/he doesn't get the max, but something more fair (which is a relative) to the client.
I think you're right about rulings, but rulings and plea bargains aren't the same thing. I may be wrong, but I don't think a judge even needs to be involved in a plea bargain.
My point about the fairness thing is that if you didn't commit a crime, but for whatever reason the "evidence" seems stacked against you, you can take a plea bargain to serve a lesser sentence. That's not fair to you, because you didn't commit any crime at all, but you have to serve time. It's more beneficial in this case because instead of serving a year, they'll only give you three months or whatever.
It's also not "fair" if you really did commit the crime, but you have to do less time. I also think, though this may be way off, that you can accept a plea bargain for turning someone else in who is either also involved in this crime, or is involved in a larger crime or something.
Edit: Apparently I'm wrong about the "without a judge involved" part. My mistake!
Edited, Aug 18th 2010 10:46am by Belkira
Well if you didn't commit any crime, then it's not fair. That is why I said it was relative. The original statement that I mentioned (scenario 1) was that the lawyer is defending a guilty person for a fair (or more reasonable) outcome. I differentiated this from a lawyer who is fighting for their client's innocence. If the client didn't do anything, then they will fall under scenario 2.
I was defending scenario 1, because it was attacked for being erroneous.
