-- At 02:31 PM 11/11/2000 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote:
I'm not taking a position on Bell's case. I do need to tell my readers why was locked up earlier, and that seemed a reasonable way to do it. Bell was not coerced into taking the plea agreement;
All plea agreements are coercive. The serious charge that the prosecutor threatens the accused with necessarily has some relationship to evidence that the prosecutor possesses, or else it would not be a threat. The alternative lesser charge that the prosecutor offers need have no relationship to the evidence, and usually has no relationship. It is a mere formality. Even in non political cases, there is a strong tendency to make the lesser charge something that is wrong it itself, rather than a lesser form of the more serious charge, to make the lesser charge a crime something where police and prosecution have more support than they have for the more serious charge. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG T76DpThszKKJrrCcPnJOs48j5JDhlfDF9ZnRo3VC 4O4kvplrNHWQ1q3tJVEFxtxt18VXyP0hSmVTx5zoL