Silence is Not Always Golden

ByBarbara Cueter

Silence is Not Always Golden

Recently, you sent me an email instructing me not to email you again re the matter for which my son was arrested. This isn’t what you were looking for, but it is the most honest response I can give you.

While we have in the past handed over thousands of dollars to attorneys who promised to defend our mentally challeged son even to a trial, they not only did no investigation, but worked behind our backs to intimidate him into pleading guilty even to blatantly false charges in “plea bargained” guilty pleas. The first guilty plea bargain set our son up for the next charge and another guilty plea bargain.

The plea bargain is a microscopic symptom of the real problem, a deepening lack of faith in defense attorneys and our so-called justice system.

We rarely blamed plea bargains on the defense attorney hired, never realizing it was a pipeline to prison, a process of overcriminalization of the poorest and most defenseless among us, our hormone driven teenagers, our homeless war veterans, the grossly undereducated, young unwed mothers, jobless prostitutes, teen drug addicts, the mentally challenged, and a fast buck for scripted defense attorneys that would eventually fill our jails and prisons with world shattering record numbers of revolving door and permanent prisoners at taxpayer expense.

Nonetheless, we proudly maintained our faith in the U. S. Justice System for years and long admired the Legislators elected to enact law and the attorneys, Judges and Juries sworn to uphold the law and inherent rights of We the People.

Regrettably, we can no longer endorse the abdication of our goals, principles and values. We are encouraged to vote, to speak up for our rights, practice our freedom of speech. Yet the voice we hear is not our own. In subtle ways, our voice is silenced “for our own good” or to “protect the rights of the defendant.” Your email suggested that I can depend on you to speak up for my son’s rights, yet the voice I hear is silent.

It seems that keeping me under control is more important than you being kept informed and up to date on important issues or facts pertaining to the case, through divided you may fail an objective view or the fact necessary that best allows you to represent your client. I do believe that when two parties agree all the time on everything presented to them, one voice is probably not necessary. But, when the opinions and long term goals are diametrically opposed, the unwanted result is imminent. This is the philosophy which spawned our 200 years of government.

Once upon a time, we looked forward to being part of the political demographic and a necessary advocate for our challenged son. We also believed we could provide factual input the attorney could not possibly hope to obtain achieve on his/her own. Now I feel that my input is not only unnecessary, but hinders or threatens your perceived skills as a necessary or expert “plea bargain” negotiator or compromiser, and the rigid minimum sentencing laws take discretion out of Judge’s hands. Your attitude denies us an opportunity to present facts or knowledge that could be vitally important to our son’s defense. The defense tactics of no input serves mainly to raise the blood pressure my doctors strives to contain. Clearly a conflict of interest there! We do not understand the defense posture that a plea bargain of guilty is better than a strong defense. Knowing that we are not to email our knowledge of facts surrounding the incident does not strengthen our belief that you can act omnipotently in our son’s defense.

By delaying input, you may be seriously compromising his defense, i.e., critical witnesses may die, disappear, or not come forward. Your rigid attitude scares the living daylights out of me. Not just for me, but for the other defendants, children and grandchildren, the disabled or impaired, who are forced by circumstances to rely upon rigid and scripted defense attorneys to defend their rights to a defense or trial defense rather than be forced or coerced into accepting an unwarranted, undeserved, stained, or nonfiction scare tactic plea bargain of “guilty.”

Police generally do not act prudently, but rather act to file charges. But more importantly for our society, police now file charges with only one side heard, ignoring discernment of cautionary tales rather than weighing a preponderance of actual facts. The police report I just read input words where there were none. The molesters become victims, the victim a molester. The defense deigns an automatic guilty plea bargain.

One of us is out of touch with mainstream America. America is fed up with political corruption. Overcrininalization of youth - the slippery-slope to imprisonment at taxpayer expense - has become a subject worthy of the ongoing Congressional hearings!

I am disappointed and upset as all get out! I have decided to forward this to everyone on my mailing list, and will encourage them to do the same. With several hundred in my address book, I have every faith that the eventual exponential factor will create a credible statement to lawmakers. We need to stop overcriminalization of our youth and impugning the coerced guilty plea bargain(s) for ever more. We must stop relying on police and teachers to solve every societal issue. We need to become watchful, attentive, involved parents again. The alternative is intolerable and unbearable… often an early death from preventable suicide. But most of all we need to put a stop to one size and style fits all plea bargained guilty pleas and allow judges more discretion.

Overcriminalization and Coerced Plea Bargains are not commonly known terms, but people are becoming more cognizant of them due to newspaper and magazine articles, television reporting, movies, Congressional hearings, and books. Troubled Justice, an unpublished historical fiction novel, narrates the mental cruelty and suffering endured by the overcriminalized and their families, and how the process of overcriminalization and coerced plea bargains that cannot be appealed came to overcrowd USA jails and prisons with world shattering record numbers of revolving door and permanent prisoners to be supported at taxpayer expense.

“Overcriminalization is the act of imposing unbalanced penalties with no relation to the gravity of the offense committed or the culpability of the wrong doer. It is the imposition of excessive punishment or sentences without adequate justification. Over criminalization can be considered as an abuse of the criminal justice system.” USLegal.com

“Coerced plea bargains is the act of using overcriminalization, defendant’s criminal history, currant charges, mandatory minimum sentencing, and prosecutorial powers, separately or combined, as a matter of law or policy, to determine the sentence, with defense counsel or defendant having little say, the judge even less, and to bludgeon defendants into accepting any plea bargain the prosecutor recommends.”

Many inmates are victims of overcriminalization and coerced plea bargains. Some even set up or falsely accused by nefarious employers or individuals, overbooked to generate plea bargained guilty pleas from which there is no ordinary appeal, intimidated by prosecuting attorneys who offered guilty plea bargains to even to blatantly false charges, their criminal record impugned over and over, then strong-armed by highly paid and scripted defense attorneys into pleading guilty “in your best interest,” or “listen, that’s the way it’s going to go down,” or “two years of probation if you plead guilty or up to 10 years in prison if a jury finds you guilty.”

If you were innocent of the crime charged, how would you plead to the last plea offer?

It can take ten years and authorities in several states to get one crooked businessman arrested, but it only takes two cops a few hours to return vulnerable defendants to the revolving door of injustice.

Our son is greatly concerned because he thinks you believe him guilty and are just waiting for the prosecutor’s plea bargain. He wants a new attorney because no one is really preparing for his trial. You were twice provided a list of 14 untaken legal defense actions prepared by other criminal defense attorneys plus invasion of privacy.

“… anyone who fails to deny an accusation or to offer an exculpatory exception under circumstances where denial is reasonably appropriate is considered to have admitted the truth of the accusation.” Id., pp 1378-1379 Google: olivera v. Grace

Silence is not always golden. Enough already of overcriminalization and coerced plea bargains.