"TAP não sobrevive se se mantiver pública", garante Pinto Luz

[Automech]

Cá é impensável porque existem habilidades processuais que, muitas das vezes, acabam por ilibar os arguidos.

É a câmara de vigilância que não estava registada na CNPD, é a escuta que, apesar de mostrar a culpabilidade do suspeito, não foi autorizada por um juiz e logo é nula, etc.

[Lion_Heart]

Sempre achei estranho o porque de nos EUA a maioria das pessoas (Madoff incluido) confessarem os seus crimes antes mesmo de chegarem a julgamento.

Coisa que por ca é impensavel.

A resposta esta acima

[Lion_Heart]

Paris Hilton admitiu, nesta segunda-feira perante um tribunal de Las Vegas, que a cocaína encontrada na sua mala, durante uma operação policial, pertencia-lhe. De acordo com a agência Reuters, Hilton foi multada em dois mil dólares (aproximadamente, 1500 euros) e ainda terá de cumprir 200 horas de serviços comunitários.

A herdeira da cadeia de hotéis Hilton também foi condenada a uma sentença de um ano, que foi suspensa, e foi advertida pelo tribunal: caso seja novamente detida em Las Vegas, será imediatamente presa. «O objectivo é que você consiga mudar o seu comportamento», declarou o juiz Joe Bonaventura durante a audiência.

A milionária escapou da prisão efectiva por ter reconhecido o crime de posse de estupefacientes.

Paris Hilton e o seu namorado foram mandados parar pela polícia durante uma operação stop, no passado mês de Agosto. No processo, um dos agentes alega ter sentido o cheiro a marijuana vindo do carro, afirmando ainda que, enquanto investigava a viatura, descobriu uma pequena bolsa com cocaína, que se encontrava no interior da mala de Hilton. Na altura, a actriz e cantora garantiu que nunca tinha visto nem a droga nem a bolsa.

in www.tvi24.iol.pt

[Lion_Heart]

Plead guilty or go to trial?

System unfairly rewards one, penalizes other, lawyers say
Monday, March 27, 2006

By Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In the criminal justice system, defendants in federal court can be convicted one of two ways -- by pleading guilty or after a trial.

Those who choose to admit their guilt are often "rewarded" with lesser sentences.

Those who choose to take advantage of their Constitutional right to trials are often "penalized" with harsher sentences.

Prosecutors argue that guilty pleas are essential, and without them the system would be crippled by thousands of cases backlogged for trial. Further, they think that defendants who take responsibility for their crimes deserve to benefit.

Defense attorneys and some academics, though, argue that the system is so skewed that most clients are forced to accept pleas, knowing that if they take their chances at trial and lose, they will face sentences that are at least 25 percent higher.

Some view it as a "trial penalty." Others look at it as a "plea reward."

"However you prefer to frame it, if you go to trial [and lose], closer to the full wrath of the law will be brought down upon you," said John H. Kramer, a former director of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

In 1987, the federal court system implemented mandatory sentencing guidelines to try to eliminate discretionary sentencing and to ensure that like crimes were punished similarly.

A 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision made those guidelines advisory only, but one element that remained the same was the provision that allows a sentence reduction for "acceptance of responsibility," or pleading guilty.

The guideline chart is broken down into 43 different offense levels, with the lowest being 1 for the least serious crimes and 43 for the most serious. It also takes into account the defendant's criminal history.

By pleading guilty, a defendant receives an automatic sentence reduction of at least two levels, and sometimes three. In some cases, that means a 35 percent reduction in prison time before anything else is even considered -- like cooperating with the government or other mitigating circumstances.

In a local example, former Ross police officer Michael Lance Baird and his girlfriend, Jennifer Paczan, were charged with three counts each of conspiring to make methamphetamine and possessing the equipment and chemicals needed to do so.

Mr. Baird pleaded guilty to one count -- conspiracy -- and was sentenced earlier this month to six months' home detention.

Ms. Paczan used her right to a trial by jury and was convicted of all three counts. On Thursday, she was sentenced to serve 33 months in a federal prison. The increased sentence stemmed, in part, from her lengthy criminal history, but even without it, her sentencing range would have been 15 to 21 months in prison -- significantly more than Mr. Baird's sentence.

"Of course it leads to disparity and different sentences," said Mary Beth Buchanan, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. "But it's supposed to. It's designed to give a reduction to those who readily take responsibility and admit their conduct."

The benefits of guilty pleas are many. They save money and resources for the prosecution and defense because the lawyers don't have to prepare for trial. They help make the criminal justice system run more efficiently. And to some extent, they are viewed as the first step in the rehabilitative process for the defendant -- to admit the wrongdoing.

"Without [guilty pleas], the system would be unworkable," Ms. Buchanan said.

But Carmen Hernandez, first vice president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, calls guilty pleas "the bane of our existence."

"As a defense attorney, you're caught between a rock and a hard place," she said.

Defendants often weigh the consequences they face -- even if they are not guilty -- and choose to plead just to avoid the possibility of an increased prison term, she said.

"The incentive is so great that it's hard to stand on principle and say 'I'm not going to do it,' " Ms. Hernandez said.

She also thinks that by avoiding jury trials, there's less of an effort to "keep the system honest."

"If the government had to try every case, maybe they'd be more selective in the cases they prosecute," said Ms. Hernandez, who worked as a federal public defender for 16 years.

And when defendants plead to the charges against them, prosecutors are not forced to prove their cases beyond a reasonable doubt, she added.

Nationally, for fiscal year 2004, 95.5 percent of the 51,666 convictions were reached through guilty pleas. That means that only 2,316 U.S. District Court cases across the country went to trial.

In the Western District of Pennsylvania, the percentage was just a bit lower. Of the 261 convictions that year, 94.3 percent were reached through pleas.

Mr. Kramer, who now teaches at Penn State University, believes the American court system has been acclimated to processing guilty pleas.

"We've created a barrier to any potential increase in jury trials," he said. "If all of a sudden we had a 20 percent increase, it would be tremendously burdensome on the court system to accommodate those."

There have been court challenges to the "acceptance of responsibility" provision, claiming that it is a "per se punishment" for those who go to trial. But courts have consistently found that not to be the case, said Albert Alschuler, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School.

"It's a perfectly laughable system," he said. "The prosecutors love it. The message is any sane defendant, guilty or innocent, ought to do the prosecutor's bidding."

Congress keeps increasing possible criminal penalties and establishing mandatory minimum sentences, which in turn give prosecutors more leverage to convince defendants to plead guilty, Mr. Alschuler said.

"We keep jacking up penalties to induce guilty pleas," he said.

"We have built up an opportunity for prosecutors to pile on," added Mr. Kramer. "It is a significant armament in the prosecution."

But Ms. Buchanan doesn't see it that way.

"The process works exactly as it was intended to work," she said. "If everybody received a sentence reduction, there would be no incentive to plead guilty."

First published on March 27, 2006 at 12:00 am
Paula Reed Ward can be reached at pward@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1455.


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