I was reading about the crypto bro who was convicted of fraud recently, but his sentencing isn’t going to happen until March 2024. Why does it take so long?

Cheers!

  • JohnDClay
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    1 year ago

    Are the two tiers corresponding to public defenders and private lawyers for defendants?

    • snooggums@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Yes, but actually no. The regular people generally have charges that are kind of straightforward with easy to understand facts. At least, that is all that is allowed in court and generally there is one or two chances to make certain objections because they don’t have time to nitpick tiny details either because the lawyer just doesn’t have enough hours in the day or there isn’t enough involved to have a lot of objections. Normal people can’t afford lawyers who have 30 paralegals looking for needles in haystacks.

      The rich have more expensive lawyers who have more resources and employees who can come up with reasons to drag out the process. Then, if the crime is financial, there is an absolute ton of paperwork and that takes a lot of time and people power to sort through. Things like aligning dates and who knew what when takes a long time. Whether this is worth the time or not (it generally isn’t) the court system does allow for a lot of time because those kinds of crime aren’t usually putting people in danger of physical harm if it takes time to prosecute so they default to allow more flexibility for delay after delay. Compound that with so many people finding so many reasons to drag it out means the more money you have the slower the court system works, and that is in your favor.

      Most court systems are pay to win for the simple fact that the more money you have the more there is to bring up in court, and the more you can bring up the more likely you are to win. It isn’t like prosecutors have unlimited funds.