False documents

[Clitheroekid]

Moderator Message:
Getting a bit off-topic guys! Do you want this split to carry on elsewhere?? (chas49)

Speaking for myself I don't think it matters at all on this board if the discussion wanders off-topic. It shouldn't be subject to the same rigid rules that apply to DAK, and diverting a discussion elsewhere will simply kill it (judging by what seems to happen elsewhere).

The argument that people who are looking for an answer to a legal question will become befuddled by a 40 post thread doesn't hold. The actual point is usually covered (assuming the answer is actually known) in the first couple of posts, so they don't need to read any further if they aren't interested in the subsequent discussion.

In any case, this isn't first and foremost a public information website. It's primarily a discussion board for its members, who should basically be free to discuss things as they wish unless there's some clear justification for stopping them.

[Clitheroekid]

My point was that it isn't usually the fact that you are guilty that causes you to plead guilty, but rather your (lawyer's) perception of whether that guilt can be proven.

This is not so in most criminal cases. Although I've not practised in criminal law for many years now I did some criminal defence work for several years, so I do have a fair amount of experience.

The views that you express relate almost exclusively to serious, professional criminals. They view crime as a business that involves risks, and they use their lawyers as their risk managers. So yes, they and their lawyers will do all that's necessary to avoid / minimise the risk of jail, including in many cases bribery, witness intimidation, jury-nobbling and so on.

They have the money to do this, and from speaking to colleagues who deal with these high level criminals such practices are commonplace. In fact there is one well known (at least amongst the criminal classes) firm of criminal lawyers who will, for a suitable fee mostly paid in cash, create an entire defence, including the provision of witnesses, alibis, bribery and so on.

But fortunately for the rest of us most criminals are not professionals. Many crimes are one-offs committed by people who are not morally bankrupt - for example someone who is slightly over the limit and kills a pedestrian who would probably have been killed by a sober driver anyway may well be charged with manslaughter. But the reality of it is that they are not evil bastards, reckless of who they kill or maim as they speed through a town centre. They are just ordinary people who committed what may well have been a minor crime but which had dreadful consequences.

I've defended people like this and they would almost without exception plead guilty simply because they felt horrendously guilty. Yes, of course I would try to negotiate the charge down as far as possible, but the client would not remotely have wanted to plead not guilty even if I had advised them that there was a chance the jury would feel sorry for them and acquit against the evidence.

But even habitual criminals would in my experience generally prefer a guilty plea even where I told them that there may be a technical defence. What people outside the criminal world fail to understand is that there is often quite a close relationship between criminals and the local police - after all, the police depend on them for their jobs! in that situation the criminal would know that if they were to run a `smart [expletive deleted]' defence and be acquitted they would be marked out for special attention by the local Plod, whereas if they coughed it like a good lad and took their punishment they'd be left alone.

[Gengulphus]

Moderator Message:
Getting a bit off-topic guys! Do you want this split to carry on elsewhere?? (chas49)

Not really. IMHO the only practical way for it to continue elsewhere is for the posts concerned to be picked out specifically and moved into a separate topic, where it could continue more-or-less uninterrupted. That's liable to be quite a lot of moderator work even when a clean split is possible (*), but the alternative of stopping the sideshoot discussion, leaving the existing posts where they are and telling people to continue elsewhere seldom worked on TMF (where it was basically the only mechanism available to the moderators) and I haven't seen any signs of it being more successful here when it's been tried.

In any event, I doubt I'm going to contribute further to the sideshoot discussion than my observation about why people plead guilty - as that observation plus a similar one on a break-in about 10 years ago are basically my only practical experience of the question!

(*) Especially when the sideshoot discussion has been allowed to continue for some time - if a moderator does want to move such a discussion elsewhere in that way, I think they'd do well to do it as soon as they've identified the issue and solution, to minimise the number of posts that need picking out and moving.

Gengulphus

[redsturgeon]

Moderator Message:
We've had a chat about this in the other place and the consensus is that we are happy for things to continue as they are on this board for the reasons already put forward on this thread.

[Lootman]

I've defended people like this and they would almost without exception plead guilty simply because they felt horrendously guilty. Yes, of course I would try to negotiate the charge down as far as possible, but the client would not remotely have wanted to plead not guilty even if I had advised them that there was a chance the jury would feel sorry for them and acquit against the evidence.

That's really a moral or emotional decision rather than a legal or logical one. If my lawyer advised me to plead not guilty (as happened) it would never cross my mind to not follow his advice. After all I am paying him to do his job, which is to mitigate the outcome as much as possible. If I'm going to plead guilty at Magistrates court then I'm not sure I even need a lawyer. Just wear a nice suit, accept responsibility, apologise to the court and promise to never do wrong again.

And whilst I do not consider myself a "serious, professional criminal" in any way, not even in my somewhat misspent youth, I do most certainly want to get away with something if I can.

In fact the whole thing about feeling guilty is a red herring. People generally feel guilty after they get caught. If they had really felt guilty before getting caught, they'd have given themselves up (*). But I wonder whether the very ethical behaviour you usually see with your clients is a function of where and how you practice law. A country solicitor's office in a quiet town is going to encounter a rather different demographic than, say, a solicitor based in the East End of London. (Or not?).

Finally I will add my vote to CK and Gengulphus in saying that I think digressions like this are fine on this board, as long as there is interest. TMF used to also have a "Legal Matters - Theoretical" board or some such. Here we don't so the one legal board has to do double duty.

(*) I'd probably make an exception there for a driver who injures or kills someone in a road accident. I'm thinking more about deliberate crimes.

[Clitheroekid]

That's really a moral or emotional decision rather than a legal or logical one. If my lawyer advised me to plead not guilty (as happened) it would never cross my mind to not follow his advice. After all I am paying him to do his job, which is to mitigate the outcome as much as possible.

And whilst I do not consider myself a "serious, professional criminal" in any way, not even in my somewhat misspent youth, I do most certainly want to get away with something if I can.

It's interesting that you appear to have entirely discounted any question of conscience. Your admission that you would, having committed a crime, then wish to get away with it if possible is entirely consistent with the mindset of a professional criminal but is not consistent with the way most `non-professional' criminals react.

Many crimes are committed by ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations. For example, a wife who loves her husband may nevertheless be driven by his behaviour to attack and seriously injure or even kill him; an otherwise honest employee in a dire financial position may be tempted to `borrow' from his employer, fully intending to repay it; a man who is basically a decent human being may become a rapist when consensual sex becomes (or is deemed to become) non-consensual.

When such criminals are caught they do not usually view their crime in the dispassionate, logical way that you do. They are usually deeply ashamed of their behaviour and actively want to `own up'. The reason they will often refuse the option of running a `technical' defence is that they want to take their punishment so that they feel they are then entitled to be admitted back into society having performed their penance. We all know the contempt in which criminals are held who escape conviction on a legal technicality, and they don't want to be seen in that light.

In fact the whole thing about feeling guilty is a red herring. People generally feel guilty after they get caught. If they had really felt guilty before getting caught, they'd have given themselves up

That's a very simplistic and somewhat naive view. Many people who have committed a one off crime will feel extremely guilty, but there are many practical considerations that mitigate against handing themselves in. They have to consider the effect of doing so on their family, their job, their financial situation, their standing in the community and so on. Such factors will in most cases outweigh the `urge to purge' their guilt, but it doesn't mean that they don't carry it with them or that it's not a heavy burden.

It may be a cliche, but like most cliches it only exists because it reflects the truth, that someone who is eventually caught for a crime committed some time ago may actually feel relieved that it's out in the open and that they have finally paid their debt.

Of course for a criminal defence lawyer a client with a conscience is just a PITA!

But I wonder whether the very ethical behaviour you usually see with your clients is a function of where and how you practice law. A country solicitor's office in a quiet town is going to encounter a rather different demographic than, say, a solicitor based in the East End of London.

Criminals are the same everywhere. However, although I've not practised criminal law for many years most of the serious criminals I dealt with in my early years were from Liverpool and Manchester, and in a league table of criminality I think bot cities would compete fairly effectively with the East End!

[Lootman]

It's interesting that you appear to have entirely discounted any question of conscience. Your admission that you would, having committed a crime, then wish to get away with it if possible is entirely consistent with the mindset of a professional criminal but is not consistent with the way most `non-professional' criminals react.

I didn't entirely discount it. I talked about "moral and emotional" factors and that would include the concept of "conscience". But as noted I think at that point we have deserted a legal discussion about the pros and cons of a "not guilty" plea and are discussing more an ethical question.

I read "Crime and Punishment" at an impressionable age and was very influenced by how conscience gnawed away at Raskolnikov who, having originally considered himself "above the law", enters into a decline of his own making for the next 600 pages. I think this is what you are getting at when you said "someone who is eventually caught for a crime committed some time ago may actually feel relieved that it's out in the open and that they have finally paid their debt". There is a similar premise underpinning Arthur Miller's play "The Ride down Mount Morgan".

The way that Raskolnikov rationalises his crimes are common too, much like the debtor who blames others for his debts, or spouses blaming each other. A good number of those who commit crime push the blame onto others so that they can justify to themselves their continued crimes. And it is only when they get caught that they finally face up to their actions, which can be a pivotal moment and opportunity for redemption. As such it is getting caught that drives change for the better, and not necessarily any punishment that the system metes out.

You may be correct that many people don't have as clinical an approach to such things as I do. My wife likes to tell me that I am solipsistic so she might agree with you. The way I deal with things now is very different from decades ago, but I still like to think I see both sides of the issue. That said, you have a much more impeccably ethical approach than I do, I'll freely admit.