by Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Craig Roberts:
According to this report–https://www.rt.com/news/585357-powell-pleads-guilty-trump-georgia/ — one of President Trump’s attorneys, Sidney Powell, “pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiring to interfere with election duties and accepted a sentence of six years’ probation and a $6,000 fine. She must also write a letter of apology to the state and its residents and testify against her co-defendants, including her former client.”
I will explain to you what this means. Sidney Powell found herself at risk at the hands of a black prosecutor and a black jury in Atlanta, Georgia in a jury trial. Powell already knew that the prosecutor was biased against her and reasoned the same from the black jury.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Plea bargaining, which is what Sidney Powell has done, arose because prosecutors are more interested in their conviction rate than they are in innocence or guilt, and judges are more interested in clearing their dockets than in trials. To aid their conviction rate, prosecutors have gained the power to withhold exculpatory evidence from the defendant and to bribe other defendants with reduced sentences or with money to testify falsely against the target defendant. This is what Sidney Powell has done.
What this means for Trump is that one of his own attorneys has admitted guilt rather than to undergo the ordeal and risks of trial and has agreed in exchange to testify against Trump. So Trump’s own lawyer provides the black prosecutor and black jury (or white Democrat) with evidence to convict Trump.
As I explained in my book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions in 2000, in a plea bargain a fictional crime is created and it serves as a substitute for the alleged crime. The fictional crime is a lessor one compared to the indictment crime. The defense attorney tells the defendant to accept the plea deal he has negotiated and not risk a jury trial that will annoy both the prosecutor and judge, with a corresponding higher punishment if found guilty.
Plea bargaining results in defendants admitting to what did not happen in order to avoid the more severe charges in the indictment, often orchestrated in order to coerce a plea. Cleary, plea bargaining permits prosecutors to build cases on speculation rather than on evidence.
As I wrote in 2000:
It is only a short step from creating a fictional crime out of a real one to creating a fictional crime out of thin air. The step isn’t taken all at once. When he option of plea bargaining first surfaces, it is considered by everyone involved as a way of meting out punishment in a timely way. But with the passage of time, several things happen.
As Plea Bargaining takes over from jury trials, as it has, the investigative work that is the basis for the indictment is not tested by judge and jury. This permits prosecutors to bring charges for which they have little or no evidence. The public presumes that the prosecutor has a case, and the prosecutor uses the media to create a presumption of guilt. Newspaper and television reports from anonymous leaks from the prosecutor’s office, preceded by the phrase “according to sources familiar with the investigation,” create a presumption of guilt, reducing the defendant’s chance of an objective jury. It would be unusual for a jury to find innocent a person already convicted in the media.
The pressure builds as the prosecutor speaks of expanding the investigation to family, friends, employees, and in Trump’s case his attorneys. The defendant is told by his lawyer that even if a jury throws out most of the charges the one or two that remain may carry severe penalties. In RICO cases, the prosecutor can freeze the defendant’s assets, making it impossible for him to pay his attorneys.
Meanwhile, the defendant’s attorney has been meeting with the prosecutor to arrange a plea bargain. Neither wants the trouble or risk of a trial. When the defendant is worn down and loses all hope of a fair, or affordable, trial, a deal is brokered.
When the defendant, his attorney, and the prosecutor stand before the judge, the judge asks for assurance that the plea was voluntary and no deals prompted it, and he is given assurance. Judges, clerks, defense attorneys, persecutors, the defendant all are parties to the lie.
It is nonsense to expect honesty and justice to characterize a process that bases conviction on plea bargains. Psychological pressure, indeed torture, and exhaustion of the defendant’s resources replace evidence.
Read More @ PaulCraigRoberts.org
