I took a plea bargain once and my lawyer said that if the judge did

[Maraya1969]

not believe I really thought I was guilty, (which I did not) that he could force me to go to trial. So I had to make a statement about my guilt in a situation that I did not believe I was guilty in.

Got that?

Well I just heard the ENRON lawyers saying that their client knows he is innocent but is pleading because he is broke and blah blah blah.

How can this man get up an tell the judge he is guilty so he can turn on his co-defendants and get a lesser sentence when his lawyers just told the world he does not believe himself to be guilty?

[Vincardog]

1. They probably tortured his confession out of him. They can make you say

anything.

[Maraya1969]

9. But his lawyer is on the TV saying he is innocent and he says he is

innocent. I was told you had to say you were guilty to take a plea bargain and that you couldn't declare innocence and just take the deal.

[McCamy Taylor]

2. GOOD question. Makes you wonder about the judge and the DAs.

The defense can use this kind of stuff to claim that the federal prosecutors are pressuring "innocent" people to give bogus testimony in order to railroad their "innocent" client.

I am convinced that the whole federal prosecution is a charade and that the federal prosecutors have been instructed to lay the groundwork for an overturned conviction on appeal a la Oliver North. In exchange, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling will keep quiet about Bush, Cheney, Rove and White complicity in the price gouging of California, the premeditated invasion of Afghanistan and illegal oil deals with Sadaam.

If I was a gambling woman I would bet money on Ken Lay doing an Oliver North. Jeff Skilling may be found hanging from a sheet in his jail cell. The feds have been setting him up as "mentally unstable."

[spindrifter]

3. This is called an Alford plea

(North Carolina v. Alford)


The point is to enable someone to plead guilty for the purpose of taking a plea recommendation from the Govt. He does hae to make the statement that even though he doesn't think he is guilty as charged, he has reviewed the ev. against him and believes that the fact finder would find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt if he went to trial.
I know it is difficult for people to get the point of all of this, but there are times when it is actually fair and just to allow a person to plead guilty to take advantage of a plea offer rather than go to trial and be found guilty of piled-on charges.
I am bothered, however, by the bit about how he can't afford to go to trial. Since he charged with crimes, he could probably have a Fed. Public Defender--actually, I don't think he really is that broke, though.

[Thorandmjolnir]

4. Plea bargains are a truly american invention.

Most other western countries do not allow plea bargains, because they give too much power to the prosecution, and because you end up with a result like this. A man, who believes he is Innocent, but cannot afford to continue to prove his innocence.

Prosecutorial discretion has been a point of controversy in the United States. American prosecutors' essentially unchecked discretion and their overwhelming dominance in plea bargaining have long been criticized as inconsistent with the principles of fairness, equity, and accountability on which the system of justice in the United States is based. In considering possible American law reform, scholars and commentators have suggested the possibilities of reforming the American system by referring to the experience of continental law countries. In the context of prosecutorial practice, these reformers are especially impressed by the principle of compulsory prosecution and the consistent control that is placed on the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in continental law countries.

http://icj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/12/1/22

[Sanity Claws]

5. Could you have misunderstood?

I think you misunderstood your attorney. No judge is obligated to accept a plea bargain. He may be more inclined to reject a plea bargain where you do not admit guilt but accept punishment than an outright guilty plea. In the Enron case, the judge may be inclined to accept the plea arrangement, depending on what else is part of it.

[Maraya1969]

10. Yes that is what I am saying. I did not believe I was guilty and wanted

to tell the judge while accepting the plea bargain but my attorney said the judge could make me go to trial if he thought I did not believe in my own guilt.

That whole thing was a nightmare that was too much to handle. I think I would have been vindicated at a trial but I was in such a bad emotional state I just couldn't go through with it.

Seeing Judge Judy on the TV would send me into a panic in those days as would a cop car or anyone in uniform for that matter. It was a freaking horror that I just wanted behind me. I would have admitted to eating spiders if it got me out of the situation.

[Garbo 2004]

6. The lawyers I saw were representing Lay and Skilling. I don't think they

represent Causey. Causey's lawyer reportedly just said Causey would just tell the truth about what happened.

It appears that Lay's and Skilling's lawyers are the ones who are doing the media spinning about Causey for obvious reasons, not Causey's lawyer.

[spindrifter]

8. Yes, they are just

certain he will have all kinds of good things to say about their clients. Weird--the AUSA probably thinks he has all kinds of bad things to say about Lay and Skilling--as in he can explain the weirdo accounting that underpinned Enron.

[KnaveRupe]

7. Isn't that what happened to Abu Ghraib pinup girl Lyndie England?

I know it's UMCJ rather than the civilian justice system, but if I recall correctly, her attempt at a guilty plea was denied and she was forced to stand trial.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/05/04/iraq/main692951.shtml

Again, UCMJ is a different animal, but it's not inconceivable.