Why people like Karen Fletcher take Bad Plea Bargains
ajehals on Reddit summed it up in his post
The US system is massively stacked against people who don’t plead guilty, if you were facing 50 years in prison for a mass of collected offenses but are offered a deal of 6 month’s home detention if you plead guilty, what do you do? Obviously some people would be strong enough to fight it, but then quite a few wouldn’t, especially if the ‘crimes’ are something that may hinge more on the jury’s personal beliefs than the law.
I can see her having been told that she would be charged with a crime (or indeed multiple crimes) for each story published, plus a rash of generic offenses that loosely apply to her situation, being told that each offense carries a prison sentence (so even being found innocent of almost everything would lead to a period of incarceration) and her feeling that the chance of getting justice was just too high.
This is one of the things that is wrong with the US justice system (look at how many guilty pleas there are and also the level of discounts available for those pleas) it is stacked against anyone innocent but accused of a crime, pleading innocent seems to massively up the stakes in a system where the law isn’t always the basis of the final decision.
if you prefer a more scholarly approach Slate has one as well.
Justice reform, better laws and educated juries are the treatments for this but until we end the drug war and the military/prison/industrial complex reforming Fascist America is far off.
However as we come together to work back to to a free country we can do dome simple things to help , join and support the ACLU, Project Innocence and other great organizations. Also every election we must vote for good people who are willing to support the Constitution even when it supports bad people people like Karen Fletcher.