Plea Bargaining Quotes

Only the mob takes the Fifth.

If I rob a gas station, I'm going to get 15 years. If I steal $400 million on Wall Street, I start plea-bargaining.

Defendants are being evaluated based on numerical grid without any aggravating circumstances being considered. The effect has been to transfer the disparity from the judge to the prosecutor allowing for a great deal of leeway on indictments.

The American system of criminal prosecution is accusatorial, not inquisitional, and the 5th Amendment is its essential mainstay.

People plead guilty or admit to crimes they didn't commit for various reasons. Certain interrogation procedures produce high rates of false confessions.

Ask any experienced defense lawyer: the real risks are for an accused person who is innocent. A guilty defendant has many more options available.

I didn't feel at all guilty about what I did, so I couldn't plead guilty, even though I would get a more lenient sentence.

Most lawyers aren't trial lawyers. Most lawyers, even trial lawyers, don't get their problems solved in a courtroom. We like to go to court. It seems heroic to go to court. We think we're the new, great advocates, better than anything we've seen on TV, and we come home exhilarated by having gone to court.

If you're dealing with criminals, they're not going to want to go to court.

My mother negotiated a plea deal, and my father went to trial. I think one thing we notice in their case that kind of stands out is how, in some ways, arbitrary the outcomes in the criminal justice system can be. And they did basically the same thing, identical thing.

Prosecutors frequently overcharge, load up charges on individual defendants, knowing that three strikes laws and harsh mandatory minimum sentences will force people to plea bargain and essentially convict themselves because they're terrified of doing a life sentence for a relatively minor crime.

My lord, I have some matter of law relating to the indictment, and I desire counsel to speak to it.

More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury. Most people charged with crimes forfeit their constitutional rights and plead guilty.

Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.

I have to say that every white-collar criminal defense lawyer knows when the chief financial officer turns state's evidence, everyone in the executive suite is in a lot of trouble because the chief financial officer knows exactly where the money is coming and going.

I've learned a long time ago if you don't have anything to hide, you shouldn't be pleading the Fifth, and most Americans get it.

Even the lesser burdens of a criminal investigation - including preparing for questioning by criminal investigators - are time-consuming and distracting.

Thousands of people plead guilty to crimes every year in the United States because they know that the odds of a jury's believing their word over a police officer's are slim to none.

The reality is, when you're representing someone that's guilty, you're in the position of taking that position.

A Pennsylvania woman convicted for shoplifting was sentenced to wear a badge that reads "Convicted Shoplifter." However, her lawyers hope to plea bargain down to a bumper sticker reading "I'd Rather Be Stealing!.

Don't kid yourself: The justice system is a business. It's about money.

Prosecutorial charging and plea bargaining discretion, jury discretion to convict of one or another amorphously distinguished capital or non-capital crime, and gubernatorial discretion to grant or withhold clemency are all equally uncontrolled and uncontrollable.

Officers are taught to use all the tricks and lies that courts permit within the scope of the Fifth Amendment's shield against self-incrimination.

Many low-income people in the U.S.A. charged with a crime opt to plead guilty to a lesser offence because they cannot afford to go to trial.

A lawyer wants to get his client off the hook. And even if he knows the client is guilty, he is going to find ways and means of getting him off the hook.