Comment by marshray | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marshray | Hacker News Reader

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> he still wouldn't get anything approaching a 35-year sentence.

You don't know that.

As tptacek and an actual computer criminal defense lawyer points out:

Granick: Important to remember much lower burden on prosecution at sentencing; “reasonable” loss claims on “preponderance of evidence”. Net-net: If charged with 13 felonies, you can’t lose on ANY, because even if acquitted on 12, they strike back at sentencing.

From this I conclude the game-theoretic payoff matrix is the message: don't bet on a fair trial, even if you're completely innocent. Prisoner's Dilemma indeed.

ref: https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/291344549601742848 https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/291344675305037825

> You could just as well be saying that the taxpayers are paying for Sandra Fluke to have sex.

Now who's talking hyperbole again?

You are. You're skipping the most important part of the criminal process: the trial.

* don't bet on a fair trial, even if you're completely innocent. *

Hyperbole, and dangerous exaggeration. The "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard is a very high standard. I've won jury trials where the evidence all supported the prosecution's case (seriously, I had no evidence) but was not sufficient to reach this standard. Federal judges are even stricter at forcing federal prosecutors to satisfy this standard--they'll frequently dismiss the case without even letting the jury deliberate.

If you think jury trials are patently unfair, you need to actually go down to a courtroom and watch the jury trials. You'll learn a lot, and you'll discover that the justice system is not even remotely as lopsided as you think it is...once you get to the trial stage. (But yes, it's definitely lopsided in favor of the prosecution at every stage before trial.

You won some jury trials once, good for you.
But I didn't say "jury trials are patently unfair" or even that trials in general are impossible to win.
Aaron was weighing a guaranteed felony record and 6 months in prison against 0 (if acquitted on all 13 charges) to 50 years at some unknowable probability.
Clearly the prosecutor wanted him to think that invoking his right to a trial was a "bad bet".

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