They don’t do either usually. 97% of cases fall in=between.
Sessions just instructed the entire federal court system to grind to a halt, or for 97% of the time to ignore him. Brilliant move either way.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/us/stronger-hand-for-judges-after-rulings-on-plea-deals.html
You have every right to your opinion; however, the question I asked is not about someone’s opinion of Jeff Sessions nor of what prosecutors ought to do…it is about the facts of what they do.
Honestly, it just seems to me that if I were a defendant and there were 3 potential charges against me…any prosecutor would go for the “most provable beyond a reasonable doubt”. That is of course if its a trial based case. Otherwise it would be “We can slap you with XYZ charge, but we can plea bargain down to this.”
Again…maybe I’ve watched too many procedurals.
@themadpoet I think hits the nail on this for me. Reality is it depends on the situation to be sure (case by case as it were). And that what Sessions is doing (for whatever his motivations may be); it will not be good for anyone involved.
Yes, indeed, out of all the people commenting in this thread, I am the only one you so challenged. Well done. You have certainly prooooooooved your point.
as far as I can tell, no one else definitively answered it. Just as you have every right to your opinion, I have every right to challenge the expertise in which you unequivocally stated the above. Additionally, your reply was clear in that you hate Jeff Sessions. The question isn’t “Is Jeff Sessions a good person or not”…its about legal procedure.
You should really, REALLY never ask that. They take it as a challenge.
And clearly, the only person who could be able to compare the difference between this Session memo and the Holder “Smart On Crime” initiative would be a lawyer, and therefore my opinion is valueless, because IANAL, thank you ever so much for letting me know this about you.
ETA: That would of course be former AG Holder, but hey what the hell would I know, IANAL
What if that would somehow be damaging politically to the prosecutor?
And try reading about true-life courtroom cases instead of watching them on TV. At least for me, seeing things put into words, instead of action, makes thing clearer. And, there’s nothing cut out to make it fit into a given time-slot , and best of all - NO COMMERCIALS.
To be perfectly honest I do not watch procedurals. I’ve seen plenty of episodes of L&O over the years, but it just isn’t my cup of tea television consumption wise.
I agree, “going for the max” can be catastrophic for either side of things.
I was thinking of it in this analogy…if you walk in to buy a car…do you start looking at the lowest end of your price range, or the highest? I think most would say they start at the top and work their way down. Similarly if you were negotiating salary at a new job…would you say “Well, I really would like 100k but I would totally settle for 68k.” Of course not. Any negotiation starts at the top and works its way down.
I do not have the experience to state litigation works this way. I just feel that it does.
Personally, I can’t wait to see every member of this administration charged with the most serious offenses we can prove.
slap on top of that the strictest punishment allowed as well.
As one my therapists once told me, “Feelings aren’t facts.” Trite-sounding, but true.
Being a person without much money, I’d have to say I’d look at the lowest-end and work my way up. But perception has a lot to do with it, I suppose.
Agreed on both points.
The call to “charge with the most serious offense” is less bothersome to me. It is the push for the strictest punishment allowable that is. If the worst thing I did was jay walk, then fine…charge me with jay walking. If the strictest punishment is a firing squad “Wait, can’t we talk about this?!” is my first thought.
And the blindfold costs extra. And you can’t have a cigarette.
I gather that treason is a pretty serious offence. I hope Sessions gets exactly what he wants.
I’m not a smoker…can I haz bourbon?
As a retired soldier, I’ve already faced the barrel of a weapon before…so I don’t need the blindfold. 
Maybe LEO agencies are going to see how Trump threw the leader of the largest Federal LEO agency under the bus and think, “Maybe we won’t work with that” ?
Yeah, but what if it was the POTUS holding the gun? Me, I’d not want that to be the last thing I saw before I left this mortal coil!
And I think you should have the whole bottle.
ok. THAT would terrify me. Not the last thing I see part…I just doubt he could get the job done with one shot.
“JHC you missed 6 times…I’m gonna bleed out…just give me the damn thing I’ll do it myself.”
In working democracies, unjust laws are changed. In places where rule of law has broken down, laws are selectively inforced.
But seriously, I would have thought charging with the most serious offense you can prove would be a vast improvement over the practice of plea bargaining, where people are bullied out of their right to a fair trial by the threat of prosecution with a more serious charge that they can’t really prove, but that still has a non-negligible chance of leading to a conviction, because courts have a non-negligible error rate.
