Plead Guilty or Go to Prison for Life? How Federal Drug Offenders Are Punished for Seeking Trials

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http://www.alternet.org/drugs/plead-guilty-or-go-prison-life-how-federal-drug-offenders-are-punished-seeking-trials



Americans who fight federal drug charges in court but lose after a trial are likely to spend nearly three times as long in prison compared to those who accept a guilty plea deal, a new Human Rights Watch study of federal prosecutions and sentences has found.

“Prosecutors give drug defendants a so-called choice—in the most egregious cases, the choice can be to plead guilty to 10 years, or risk life without parole by going to trial,” said Jamie Fellner, author of the 126-page Human Rights Watch report. “Prosecutors make offers few drug defendants can refuse. This is coercion pure and simple.”

Fellner’s analysis is a grim and disturbing look at a system that is intent on branding and jailing people as criminals for years, rather than a system where justice, rehabilitation or proportional sentencing is valued. The average sentence for federal drug offenders who accepted a plea deal in 2012—which was 97 percent of 25,560 offenders—was five years and four months. The average sentence for those convicted after a trial was 16 years.

What accounts for that difference is a mix of prosecutors abusing their authority to pile on charges if the accused demands a trial, the introduction of other factors at sentencing hearings if the accused is convicted—such as prior convictions or the presence of guns related to the crime, and the inability of judges to override mandatory jail terms created by a congressional sentencing commission, Human Rights Watch explained.