Yes, this kind of thing happens a lot. The incentives are misaligned with the goal to a degree where you almost wonder if it’s intentional.

This happens a lot because at the individual level, it’s sort of in everyone’s best interest to take the deal. The prosecutor wants $2,000 and 0 jail time and it all goes away. If you don’t take the deal, even assuming you win in the end, it will probably cost you way more than $2,000 and however long the probation check ins take. You will recover neither your time, nor the money you spent on lawyers/transportation/days off/etc.

At the macro level it happens because prosecutors get judged on their conviction/case closure rate, because we implicitly assume they found the right person. Browbeating people into accepting token punishments that technically close out the case counts for the metrics voters actually watch.

If I might lean a little conspiratorial for a moment, it also behooves the prosecutors office to flood the defense attorneys with cases. People will vote to raise the prosecutors funding to deal with criminals, no one will vote to raise defense attorney funding. Last I saw the average prosecutors office gets something around double the funding the defense gets.

It got so bad in some city in Oregon there was (is, really), a near constitutional crisis because the city got trapped between the provisions of the 6th amendment. Defense attorneys were so flooded they said they couldn’t take any new cases. The 6th amendment says the accused has a right to counsel, which is an issue. It also says they have a right to a speedy trial. The city was going to have to allocate money to the defense and get them lawyers quick, or drop a bunch of cases.

That never happened, the judge basically just said “Nuh uh” and I believe threatened the defense office with sanctions if they didn’t just assign the cases to lawyers who were already saying they had more cases than they could imagine.

I’m a little shocked we haven’t seen a huge wave of successful “ineffective assistance of counsel” appeals. Pointing to a signed, public statement your lawyer was overworked before you even talked to them seems like a decent starting point.

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creativeSlumber 13 hours ago | parent [-]

> This happens a lot because at the individual level, it’s sort of in everyone’s best interest to take the deal. The prosecutor wants $2,000 and 0 jail time and it all goes away. If you don’t take the deal, even assuming you win in the end, it will probably cost you way more than $2,000 and however long the probation check ins take. You will recover neither your time, nor the money you spent on lawyers/transportation/days off/etc.

Are there absolutely no provisions for an innocent person to claim all the expenses they had to incur ?

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everforward 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not in a criminal court, or really anything where the government is the counterparty. Philosophically it’s because those things are part of your “civic duty” as a citizen like taxes. Realistically it’s because the demographics of people getting the money would be unpalatable to the public. Recidivism is high, some large portion of it would go to people with prior convictions.

The absurd end of this spectrum is what happens when police damage a random persons property while chasing a suspect. They’re generally not liable for it, however most homeowners insurance won’t cover it.

I remember an early GoFundMe from a lady that went to work and a guy broke into her house and had a shootout with the police. She came home to being homeless (house got condemned because plumbing, gas, etc is bullet-riddled), and it’s a really disconcerting story to hear. I don’t recall if the city settled to quiet the story down or not.

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mindslight 9 hours ago | parent [-]

The "civic duty" rationalization is bunk, due to how unevenly it ends up applying. Someone having their house destroyed is not a "civic duty". Everyone's taxes going up a few dollars to compensate for the damage the police caused (to a house or otherwise) would be a civic duty, and municipalities paying the full cost of policing would place responsibility where responsibility belongs.

I completely agree about the realpolitik reasons though. Ultimately we need out of touch voters to realize that unaccountable government can easily turn its sights on them, as well. The real difficulty is trying to make people respect numerically low odds without falling for feel-good nonsense about "those people".

	▲	everforward 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I agree about the rationalization, I tried to imply that with air quotes. > municipalities paying the full cost of policing Since we're talking realpolitik, this will never happen. In a first principles sense, it won't because it's unpredictable at the locality level (how do you set tax rates for FY27 without knowing what you'll pay out for this?). In a realpolitik sense, it won't because a) people don't like their taxes going up and would rather bank on it not happening to them, and b) the police will throw a shit fit and refuse to work when they realize they have to consider property damage while doing their jobs, and that the public will be _pissed_ if they crash a cruiser into a parked car while LARPing John Rambo. > Ultimately we need out of touch voters to realize that unaccountable government can easily turn its sights on them, as well. Good luck and godspeed. The latest stats say 56% of US adults read at or below a 6th grade level, so say it slow and in monosyllabic words lol

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alwa 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Should the innocent person not be able to afford an attorney, they can petition the court to chuck their case at a random lawyer, who's obliged to accept it. Such indigent cases tend to be compensated at a statutory rate well below what the lawyer might be accustomed to—with corresponding effects on the enthusiasm of their defense...