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That's not how criminal procedure works. Pursuant to constitutional law, you are required to start with the charges first, so the defendant knows what they are being accused of and can prepare a defense. In some but not all jurisdictions, prosecutors may offer "plea bargains" that reduce the sentence, or reduce or drop some of the charges, in lieu of proceeding to trial. In some jurisdictions (i.e., large portions of Texas), there are no plea bargains; you always go to trial. Maximum sentence is set by law, as a matter of constitutional rights. Thus, your solution would simply restrict plea bargains to not being any shorter than 1/2 of the maximum sentence (in Aaron's case, 16 years). Making the counts non-severable is a legal and constitutional impossibility. Double jeopardy requires the prosecutor to charge you with all possible crimes arising from a single act (or intertwined set of acts) in the same criminal proceedings. Once those criminal proceedings have been adjudicated (i.e., a guilty plea, a conviction, a not-guilty verdict, or charges dismissed with prejudice), the prosecutor cannot ever charge you again for any other crimes arising from that act. Your solution would either require them to choose which charges to pursue and which charges to drop forever. That's fine in cases like Aaron's, but that's not something you want when you're dealing with a rapist or a murderer (i.e, cases far more common than Aaron's). Finally, the last suggestion, is not simply politically unpalatable, it is economically impossible. Most criminals are actually guilty; making the prosecution pay for every defense would increase the costs of the criminal justice system 1000fold. A better solution: make the prosecution pay the defense costs where (a) a defendant that is found not guilty or actually innocent, (b) a hung jury trial, if the prosecution does not refile, or (c) the prosecution drops charges before trial. This would accomplish what you want in a realistic manner (and is actually already the law in some jurisdictions). |
No, I phrased it the way I did for a reason. A prosecutor who does not think that the crime is serious enough to warrant 16 years can still offer a lower plea bargain. In Aaron's case, they may have offered 1 year in jail, making it so that by asserting his right to trial, he would be doubling his sentence to 2 years in the worst case.
> Your solution would either require them to choose which charges to pursue and which charges to drop forever. That's fine in cases like Aaron's, but that's not something you want when you're dealing with a rapist or a murderer.
Of course I know about double jeopardy. They have to choose which charges to pursue and which to drop forever sometime. The problem as it stands is that charges are piled on in a shotgun approach, making it very hard for the defendant to concentrate on what they're actually fighting, and ballooning court costs. And shouldn't rapists and murders be getting charged with rape and murder, respectively? We certainly don't want punishment of rapists and murderers to rely on whether they also happened to be disturbing the peace at the time. And yeah, I'll give you that all-or-nothing is a bit harsh, which is why I said something else about being acquitted on the majority of counts would result in complete acquittal. Create a mechanism so that the prosecution wants to make pretty sure you're guilty of something before accusing you of it.
> Most criminals are actually guilty; making the prosecution pay for every defense would increase the costs of the criminal justice system 1000fold
So then in the name of economics, guilty criminals don't actually have a right to a trial? It would still be in an obviously-guilty defendants interest to take a half-sentence plea bargain and avoid trial. I do see it being more palatable if it only applies to non-guilty outcomes, but with the following caveats: limits increased to 2x what the prosecution spends, and the money is loaned out by the government as the case progresses and is then owed by the defendant in the event of a guilty verdict. Sorry, as you should know, justice costs money.