The United States of America is a nation of laws, which on the surface, would appear to be a very good thing. After all, living in a nation, in which there is “rule of law” typically means that the citizens of such a nation, are protected from arbitrary law so enforced as well as cruel and unusual punishment, inflicted. Yet, in just about everyway the United States is, especially for those that are its poorest and its most vulnerable, a nation that exerts an incredible amount of power against the defenseless and un-championed, which basically eviscerates the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” as well as ignoring completely one’s right to a “speedy trial”, by replacing these with onerous bail amounts, which thereby places those that are without monetary resources and connections, in a state of incarceration, pending a “trial,” which more often than not is superseded by a coerced plea bargain.
Those that are the prosecutors as well as the District Attorneys throughout America, are supposed to represent the people’s interest, and perhaps in some ways, they do. What they far too often fail to do is actually to be fair, to seek the whole truth, and to see that justice is served; preferring instead to assert their power and proclivities in a manner in which they are able to achieve the result that they so desire, which simply put, is convictions, while caring not a whit about anything else.
Far too often prosecutors and their enablers “cheat the system,” by first of all, taking what are pretty much cut and dry cases and adding charge upon charge, so an assault upon one’s girlfriend, for instance, becomes not just one assault charge, but then there also is added a separate charge such as “assault by strangulation,” along with child endangerment, kidnapping, disturbance of the peace, and so on and so forth. Another strategy so used, is to take something in which the circumstances distinctly point to a manslaughter case, such as in a vehicle accident, in which the accused has not been reckless; yet, the accused is subsequently charged with vehicle homicide. In short, when many charges are “tacked on” to a particular crime, this is known as horizontal overcharging, and when a charge is taken to a higher and more onerous level, this is known as vertical overcharging; of which many prosecutors are prone to one or the other or both.
The main problem with all of these charges being added on or of the charges being upgraded to a higher and more severe penalty, is that in a nation in which negotiation, is part and parcel of the justice system, this basically gives the prosecution, which is already an expert in the law as well as being an insider of the justice system, far more ammunition than the defendant will ever have, and when such a defendant is also impoverished, ill-educated and lacking the means to bail out, then the prosecutor clearly has an awesome amount of power to get the result that the prosecution so desires, which thus occurs time and time again.
Regrettably, because the justice system in America would grind to a halt if there was no plea bargaining involved, the logic behind the adding of and the vertical increasing of charges, is so that the prosecution can more easily come to a resolution with the defendant and thereby move on to the next case and then the next. This so signifies, that those prosecution agents that do not pad charges, are more often going to be faced with the unenviable task of somehow taking more of their cases to court, for without the bargaining chip of reducing charges or eliminating most of the charges, then the options so of, are few, and more actual trials subsequently will occur.