[lazide]

It’s actually far simpler.

If you’re rich, you can afford to confer with attorneys before, and afford pretty good defense attorneys afterwards. They also typically are major contributors to the community in some way (taxes, as an employer, etc.).

Poorer folks learn ‘the law’ from TV or their cousins or whatever, and often just get a public defender with an excessive case load. They typically don’t clean up well, and won’t come across well to a jury.

Who do you think the prosecutor is going to throw the book at to pad their resume?

[janalsncm]

I don’t doubt that wealthy people have access to better council, but my point is that (as far as I know) in the US, white collar crimes are literally not capital crimes. It’s not a matter of wealthy people being charged with capital crimes and escaping with great legal defense. White collar crimes are simply not treated with the same severity as directly murdering one person, even if the outcome was the same or even orders of magnitude worse.

[lazide]

Man worth $100mln tried (and acquitted)of murder of his 12 year old daughter despite overwhelming evidence

[https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/final-ju...]

Also, OJ Simpson?

Also, jokes from Donald Trump [https://www.axios.com/2024/01/10/trump-immunity-hearing-cour...]

There is also the fact that if you’re richer, you can probably afford to solve whatever problem you have without actually murdering someone. Especially not murdering them yourself.

Because you can hire lawyers. Or can afford friends in low places. Or have power and influence to get what you want through threats. And aren’t desperate enough (usually) either to consider it a good cost/risk trade off.

But not always, rich people can be crazy too. Or actually, I mean ‘eccentric’. Crazy is when someone is poor.

If you’re criminally inclined, getting more money is always ‘worthwhile’ though, especially since it’s rare anyone can look at it and say it should be punished the same as literal murder.