TLDR:
Idea: someone start a non profit that pays to bail out anyone charged with a victimless crime on the condition that they take that shit to trial. They can represent themselves. The non profit will provide access to PACER and any AI tokens needed for the defendant to represent themselves.
Goal: overload the court system with trials, taking away the incentive many poorer defendants have to plead guilty in a plea bargain in order to not sit in jail during the course of an extended trial because they can't afford bail or competent legal representation. As the system grinds to a halt from more people exercising their right to a jury trial, the DAs will have to be much more selective with who they charge with a crime. Sheer lack of resources may stop them from pursuing victimless crime cases.
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The state's mass incarceration of those accused of victimless "crimes" including but not limited to drug crimes, prostitution, illegal gambling, driving without permission slips, collecting rainwater, informing jurors about their rights, not submitting to extortion (tax evasion), etc....is entirely dependent on the system of intimidation and coercion known as plea bargaining in which defendants are given a "choice" between excercising their constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial (that will be neither in practice) or they can accept a plea bargain in which they will get a reduced but often still horrible sentence in exchange for pleaing guilty and forgoing a trial. The system is set up so that doing otherwise is almost always foolish unless you have the resources to both bail out of jail during a prolonged trial and to pay for competent legal defense. To get an idea of how stacked the odds are against the defendant, in the Federal system only about 10% of cases go to trial and of those 99% result in a conviction. The individual state systems are not much better, even a state like California which is considered by many to be soft on crime has 15-20% of cases going to trial with a conviction rate of around 90%.
When I say the legal system is dependent on plea bargaining, I mean it would cease to function entirely if the trial rate increased by any significant amount. In most states courts are already backed up, with not enough prosecutors, judges, and public defenders to handle all the trials. Any kind of significant movement to reject plea bargains and pursue trials would likely grind the system to a halt. Before AI, this wouldn't of been feasible without a lot of money. Now defendants of victimless crimes can represent themselves using AI to prepare their motions and arguments. The impact of AI powered legal assistance is already being felt. People that previously had no options suddenly have some.
There is one roadblock to making this AI legal revolution destroy the corrupt plea bargaining that sends so many people to prison for fake crimes. That is, people don't want to sit in jail while they wait for a trial to run it's course.
Bail for some of these victimless crimes is often pretty low, so what if some freedom minded folks put together a unique bail fund and offered poor defendants of minor victimless crimes a different option? We will bail you out if you take the case to trial. You have to represent yourself but we will pay for the AI inference you need to prepare your case.
Once you overload the entire legal system with trials, prosecutors are going to be desperate to clear the backlog. They are going to start being much more selective with the charges they pursue. For the more serious victimless crimes, they will give better plea deals to try and avoid yet even more trials. By forcing trials for a bunch of little bullshit charges, maybe outcomes will improve for all those the state tries to throw in a cage for victimless crimes large and small.
Maybe they will even focus on actual criminals....
#agorism #voluntaryism #activism #law #AI
Idea: someone start a non profit that pays to bail out anyone charged with a victimless crime on the condition that they take that shit to trial. They can represent themselves. The non profit will provide access to PACER and any AI tokens needed for the defendant to represent themselves.
Goal: overload the court system with trials, taking away the incentive many poorer defendants have to plead guilty in a plea bargain in order to not sit in jail during the course of an extended trial because they can't afford bail or competent legal representation. As the system grinds to a halt from more people exercising their right to a jury trial, the DAs will have to be much more selective with who they charge with a crime. Sheer lack of resources may stop them from pursuing victimless crime cases.
----------------------------------------------------
The state's mass incarceration of those accused of victimless "crimes" including but not limited to drug crimes, prostitution, illegal gambling, driving without permission slips, collecting rainwater, informing jurors about their rights, not submitting to extortion (tax evasion), etc....is entirely dependent on the system of intimidation and coercion known as plea bargaining in which defendants are given a "choice" between excercising their constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial (that will be neither in practice) or they can accept a plea bargain in which they will get a reduced but often still horrible sentence in exchange for pleaing guilty and forgoing a trial. The system is set up so that doing otherwise is almost always foolish unless you have the resources to both bail out of jail during a prolonged trial and to pay for competent legal defense. To get an idea of how stacked the odds are against the defendant, in the Federal system only about 10% of cases go to trial and of those 99% result in a conviction. The individual state systems are not much better, even a state like California which is considered by many to be soft on crime has 15-20% of cases going to trial with a conviction rate of around 90%.
When I say the legal system is dependent on plea bargaining, I mean it would cease to function entirely if the trial rate increased by any significant amount. In most states courts are already backed up, with not enough prosecutors, judges, and public defenders to handle all the trials. Any kind of significant movement to reject plea bargains and pursue trials would likely grind the system to a halt. Before AI, this wouldn't of been feasible without a lot of money. Now defendants of victimless crimes can represent themselves using AI to prepare their motions and arguments. The impact of AI powered legal assistance is already being felt. People that previously had no options suddenly have some.
There is one roadblock to making this AI legal revolution destroy the corrupt plea bargaining that sends so many people to prison for fake crimes. That is, people don't want to sit in jail while they wait for a trial to run it's course.
Bail for some of these victimless crimes is often pretty low, so what if some freedom minded folks put together a unique bail fund and offered poor defendants of minor victimless crimes a different option? We will bail you out if you take the case to trial. You have to represent yourself but we will pay for the AI inference you need to prepare your case.
Once you overload the entire legal system with trials, prosecutors are going to be desperate to clear the backlog. They are going to start being much more selective with the charges they pursue. For the more serious victimless crimes, they will give better plea deals to try and avoid yet even more trials. By forcing trials for a bunch of little bullshit charges, maybe outcomes will improve for all those the state tries to throw in a cage for victimless crimes large and small.
Maybe they will even focus on actual criminals....
#agorism #voluntaryism #activism #law #AI
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