MSU Red Cedar Message Board

He watches "Law & Order" every day on TNT.

i work in finance, where your ass isn't getting a job with a felony charge, expunged/sealed or not. your fingerprints are sent to the FBI for clearance at every bulge bracket firm and that shit shows up.

question for the dbags who think innocent people plead guilty: do you think Sims had NOTHING to do with this and was just another black man Worthy and those Uncle Tom's in Wayne County were trying to keep down?

and to answer your other questions: yes, innocent people are in jail. but they didn't plead guilty...

who pleads guilty to a felony if they are 100% innocent and had nothing to do with a crime? if you were set up and the evidence is against you, then maybe. but how often does that happen?...

I hope you're never charged with a serious crime.

Interesting. I practice law in Illinois, where the death penalty has just been revoked in part to the fact that multiple inmates on death row had been executed who turned out to be innocent post-mortem. Shockingly, some of them even confessed to their crime and pled guilty! Why? A variety of reasons; prosecutors promise to go lighter (Whoops), poor advice from counsel, just plain being worn down by the constant barrage of questions. There are tons of reasons that an innocent man would plead guilty.

If people are falsely confessing to capital crimes, what makes you think that they aren't confessing to lesser ones, like, say a laptop theft ring?

You're in finance, so this should make sense: Cost - Benefit analysis. The plea bargain offered is a better choice than fighting the charge with even a chance of losing. Say you've got a decent case; 70% chance that you're found innocent. Keep in mind that there's a difference between being found innocent and actually being innocent. Say the average sentence for your crime is 5 years. 70% of 5 is 3.5. So, basically, if you can get less than 1.5 years in prison by plea barganing, it's a better risk than going to trial and having one of the million things go wrong that would land you (falsely and unjustly) in prison.

We use the same type of formula to promote settlement in civil cases. It's applied in the criminal area as well. This is just one example of many. If you'd like more, I'm glad to provide them.

For the record, I believe Sims was involved with this theft ring, but not greatly involved. The legal system has imposed its punishment, and when it's done, Sims will have paid his debt to society. Take a moment and think about what it means to "Pay a debt to society". What happens if you owe a debt in your job? Once it's completely paid off, does the bank come after you for more money? No, you each go your separate ways.

The same SHOULD apply here.

Sounds to me like your ex cheated on you with a black dude...that or your old man is racist as hell and you've always thought yourself better than him but still listen to everything he's got to say and believe much of it makes sense.

Many crimes are not black-and-white, clear-cut cases. Thus it makes sense you are a finance major, as you only exist on a spreadsheet, and can easily categorize and make decisions based purely on numbers laid out in front of you.

This Chitown is not the good ChitownBadger poster....I hope you are not mixing the two up.

Perhaps ChiTown's point is this: why, if Sims was completely innocent (or only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time) would an attorney counsel him to take a plea bargain for a felony conviction? I understand our legal system would literally bog down without the vast majority of cases settled through bargains, but with so much on the line and Sims seemingly cooperating fully, why wouldn't they bargain for something less indelible? It just seems strange that the judge would offer to get personally involved to get Sims' life back yet allow him to plead to a felony.

This was just about the sweetest plea deal you could hope for.

ZERO jail time, One year probation, and the kicker...after completing probation the entire thing will be expunged from his record. He would've been an idiot not to take it.

Two kids in New Baltimore did about 3 or 4 years ago. They actually "confessed" to killing a kid at a subway shop. Thing is, they never did it. They were questioned by the police for a number of hours and "confessed". Later they got the real killer in Virginia. That blew me away. Who the fuck would confess to killing someone if they didn't do it? Later I read stories about police questioning crap like that. Who knows, nothing shocks me anymore

Uh, maybe you should consider how that observation actually applies to the Sims case:

1)Innocent people ARE in jail.

2)The innocent people who are in jail aren't there because they pled guilty.

So, that would mean that the innocent people who are in jail were unsuccessful at defending themself in court after pleading not guilty, despite their innocence.

Now, Sims did not plead guilty and go to jail. He pled guilty to AVOID the risk of becoming one of your afforementioned innocent people in jail.

You're welcome.

Sometimes the costs and time are worth more than anything. Not a criminal trial, but a civil suit that was filed against me against a landlord in E.Lansing, which turned out to be a contract duspute more than anything. They were suing me for about 4K, I know I am innocent, and luckily one of my best friends had just passed the Bar exam and did the case for free for me. Well my initial offer was 2K, because I did not have the time to deal with it. After filing motions, and my friend getting a job we ended up settling for $1200, and I know I was innocent, however with my buddy getting a job it would have cost me a couple grand for a lawyer and ~$100 for every motion. Not to mention time having to take off of work and just the general pain in the ass it would have been.Of course my friend put in the settlement that I was by no way admitting guilt and was settling to avoid legal costs and time. But yeah people please Guilty or No-Contest all the time when they are innocent. I know this isn't a felon case but with Dion he could have fought it and lost gone to prison and his life would be over, or he could take the very fair deal the judge gave him. I think he made the right call. Do I think he is totally innocent? No, however I think his father put him in a very bad situation when he was a young man and he let himself get taken advantage of. It is easy for us to say that we would have told our fathers no, but we were not in that situation, and with the judge saying what she said about him playing, I think Dion was over-charged and just took the plea cause it was a hell of a deal. In 10 years he will have a better criminal record than someone who blew a 0.08 drove and got caught.