Last week in Stockton, California, a plea bargain was reached in one of the most notorious cases in recent years, a bank robbery in which the robbers took hostages, one of whom was killed. Roger Phillips reports for the Record:
[Paul] Singh spoke about three hours after Jaime Ramos and Pablo Ruvalcaba pleaded guilty to the murder of his wife, 41-year-old Misty Holt-Singh, during Stockton's Bank of the West robbery on July 16, 2014.
Ramos, 21, will spend the rest of his life in prison. Ruvalcaba, 23, received 25 years to life.* * *Ramos had faced the death penalty. Public defender Jonathan Fattarsi, who represents Ramos, suggested it was not a coincidence that his client's case was resolved within weeks of California voters' rejection of a measure that would have abolished capital punishment in the state.
"Obviously we didn't want to start talking seriously about (a plea agreement) with the District Attorney until after we knew the fate of Proposition 62," Fattarsi said.
If voters had ended the death penalty, Fattarsi said, the motivation to accept a life sentence for his client would have been gone.
In debates on the death penalty, I often note that it produces both
finality for victims' families and cost savings in ways that are not
sufficiently appreciated. When a murderer pleads guilty and receives a
life-without-parole sentence, the victim's family does not have to go
through the ordeal of a trial. The bargain often includes waiver of
rights to challenge the judgment on appeal or habeas corpus, but even
when it does not a properly obtained and documented plea leaves little
grounds for such challenges. Thus, finality is quicker, less traumatic,
and more complete than if the case when to trial.
A plea bargain is also less expensive for the state, since the cost of trial is eliminated, and the cost of attacks on the judgment is either eliminated or greatly reduced.
My debate opponents sometimes deny that there is a plea-bargain effect, but common sense and empirical studies tell us there is. Plea bargains to life imprisonment are substantially less common in states that do not have the death penalty. A case such as this would either have to go to trial or be bargained to a sentence that allows the perpetrator to get out at some point, a horrific result for the family and for justice.
A plea bargain is also less expensive for the state, since the cost of trial is eliminated, and the cost of attacks on the judgment is either eliminated or greatly reduced.
My debate opponents sometimes deny that there is a plea-bargain effect, but common sense and empirical studies tell us there is. Plea bargains to life imprisonment are substantially less common in states that do not have the death penalty. A case such as this would either have to go to trial or be bargained to a sentence that allows the perpetrator to get out at some point, a horrific result for the family and for justice.
Does Prof. D. Berman of Ohio State acknowledge this
benign effect of the death penalty?
Does he acknowledge the threat of radical Islam
in Columbus Ohio, e.g. Abdul Razak Ali Artan?
Or does he view this all as conservative "fake" news?
Clinton blasts 'epidemic' of fake news
The Hill‎ -
Hopefully the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology will have the video of its symposium online soon, and you can watch the Doug and Kent Show for yourself.
Apologies for the slow reply, as I have been wrapped up this week helping my 1L students prep for their Crim Law exam and helping my upper-level students work on their papers. Now, on to substance:
1. Have you not seen, Adamakis, my frequent mention of the plea impact of capital punishment at my blog? Have you not seen me lament that, save for Kent, too few academics engage with this critically important aspect of our criminal justice system.
2. Do you not appreciate, Adamakis, that the high rate of plea bargains in capital cases is arguably not at all benign? Some of the all-time-worst mass murderers --- e.g., the Green River killer, the Unibomber, Jared Lee Loughner, Eric Rudolph --- have been able to cut deals to avoid the DP. I wonder if you (or Kent) consider these plea deals "benign"? I do not, and I am often troubled when some supposed DP advocates do not more vocally complain about the worst of the worst cutting these sorts of deals.
3. What do you consider to be the "threat of radical Islam in Columbus Ohio." To my knowledge, not a single Ohio citizen has died as a result of radical Islam in the last 5 years. Meanwhile, perhaps over 10,000 Ohio citizens have died from opioid overdoses. I would love to have you help me understand, Adamakis --- using fake or real news, whatever you like to read --- why I should worry more as an Ohio citizen about radical Islam than about opioids. Please know this is a very sincere request, especially since you seem to be worried about what I worry about.
It is indeed atrocious that the Green River Killer was able to engage in a form of legalized extortion, holding the location of the victims' bodies hostage for the ransom of a less-than-maximum sentence. However, because Washington had the death penalty, less-than-maximum was life in prison. If life in prison had been the maximum, we would have been faced with a choice between never recovering the bodies or agreeing to a sentence that let him be released eventually. That would be far worse.
In the Unabomber case, the U.S. Attorney did not agree to a sentence that was less than what he thought was deserved. He concluded that Kaczynski's schizophrenia was a sufficiently powerful mitigating circumstance that life in prison was the appropriate sentence despite the facts of the crimes. The Sacramento DA did not agree, but due to California's statutory rejection of the dual sovereignty doctrine there was nothing she could do about it.
Loughner was, in fact, nutty as a fruitcake. Even I think he was too crazy to execute.
I'm not sufficiently familiar with the details of the Rudolph case to comment offhand.
In all these cases, Kent, I would MUCH rather have a jury making these sentencing calls after a full presentation of all evidence in open court -- rather than having a prosecutor making this (self-serving) call behind closed doors.
Let GRK try to save his like with info before a sentencing jury, rather than via a plea. And a US Attorney should not be in charge of sentencing for the Unibomber or anyone else: he should make a recommendation in open court to the responsible sentencer. In a federal capital case, that sentencer is the jury.
Same also goes for Loughner and Rudolph... and all other defendants: their punishments can/should be determined through an open, in-court sentencing process with a neutral decision-maker, not via prosecutorial fiat.
I can understand valuing the efficiency of plea-determined punishments. But do you really think, Kent, that such a process is truly just for the worst murderers OR what the Framers wanted as the means for how serious punishments will be determined in the US justice system?
In terms of the justice of the case, there is no doubt that the Green River Killer should have gone to penalty trial. But then the families of the victims would never have gotten the bodies back for positive identification and burial. Perfect justice is not achievable. Sometimes other factors intervene.
In the early post-Gregg years, there were some DAs who believed the jury should make the decision in every death-eligible case. That produced some counties with very high death-sentencing rates relative to others in the same state.
The two-level process of screening by the DA first and then the jury is a highly selective process. Yes, a good many killers who deserve the death penalty get life in prison instead. On the other hand, error in the other direction is virtually nonexistent in cases from the last decade or two. There are old cases (e.g., Lockett) that leave you shaking your head wondering how this person could have been selected for death out of the whole crop, but I do not recall offhand any halfway recent case that fits that description.
The two principal sources of arbitrariness in capital sentencing today are (1) the single-juror veto in effect in many states and the federal system, and (2) the continued tinkering with the rules by courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Jurisdictions with single-juror veto need to get rid of it and adopt true unanimity rules, such as Arizona and California have. The Supreme Court needs to take up a case to confirm that Ring/Hurst really is limited to the eligibility circumstance and then stop tinkering any further.
The Green River Killer case occurred in my jurisdiction. It is far more complicated than "holding the victims' bodies hostage." There were only a few counts of murder that could have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt against Gary Ridgway. By letting Ridgway plead guilty to 49 counts of murder, rather than going to trial on only the very few the State could prove, dozens of cases that never would have been solved (let alone tried) were conclusively resolved, and accordingly, dozens of families who never would have known what happened to their loved ones learned the truth and were able to confront the killer in court at sentencing. Yes, some bodies were located that probably never would have been otherwise, but Ridgway pleaded guilty to many more murders where there were no remains, just a missing person.
You may not agree with this result, and I understand both sides of the debate, but the elected prosecutor at the time (the late Norm Maleng, a staunch Republican) put more thought and consideration into that decision than probably any other decision of his 30-year career, and he felt very strongly that it was the right one.
Thanks for that perspective and additional info.