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Data Entry Errors Resulted In Improper Sentences
shrik writes "Slate has a look at the efforts of Emily Owens, in 2005 a Ph.D student in economics at the University of Maryland, who 'came across thousands of inconsistencies and errors in the sentencing recommendations provided to judges' by the Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy. Quoting: 'The sentencing guidelines for judges were based on a work-sheet [PDF] that "graded the severity of a convict's crime and his risk to society", ostensibly to make the rulings meted out more objective in nature. But on carefully studying her data, Owens noticed something wasn't adding up — the system seemed to be producing 1 error in every ten trials. She also realized that this "recommendation system" actually mattered: crimes and criminals analyzed to be quite similar were resulting in systematically different punishments correlated with the work-sheet.' The source of these discrepancies was ultimately found to be a simple, but very significant, PEBKAC: 'More than 90 percent of errors resulted from the person completing the work sheet [usually the DA, but signed off by the defense attorney] entering the figure from a cell next to the correct one. ... The remaining errors came mostly from incorrect choice of criminal statute in calculating the offense score and from a handful of math errors (in operations that were literally as simple as adding two plus two).' Timo Elliott's BI Questions Blog lists the morals of the story."
I always knew using microsoft excel would damn your soul to hell, but I didn't know it could also send you to jail as well.
I thought grammar errors resulted in improper sentences.
IAAL and it is legal malpractice to not double-check the prosecution's sentencing algorithm and recommendations to the judge ...
That one in ten cases is incorrectly sentenced by this system says to me that some of the attorneys are filling these forms out; When the clerks take care of it, they usually get it right.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
This is another example of why impartial and fair justice is really only available to the rich. A rich defendant could afford to pay his high powered defense attorney team to scrutinize this level of detail. This is not happening for poor defendants who are forced to settle for noble, but overworked, public defenders.
A good lawyer is expensive, some criminals can't afford good ones. Instead they end up with overworked public defenders who might have read the case file before going into the court.
You've experienced an ID 10-T error.
Liberal? Conservative? Compare perspectives at Left-Right
2 + 2 = life sentence
(for very large values of 2)
How many lawyers are modding today? Whoever is modding this down is in denial. I've worked for a law school, a law firm, and independent lawyer, and a state bar association, and I can vouch that the parent is absolutely correct. Lawyers are good at arguments, not book keeping.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
And that is exactly what is wrong with your system. If you can afford a better lawyer that gets you a lower or no sentence, that means you have class justice. Maybe not class as in the classical sense with aristocracy etc, but class as in how much money you can get together (by yourself or your direct environment). Home of the free eh? It seems only if you (or your parents) can afford it. (nearly) 1% of the population behind bars is an awful lot and compares very bad with the rest of the world.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Public defenders have a bad reputation in the US, but the reality is often different. I saw a tragic case a few years ago where the accused was represented by a public defender. The DA offered a plea deal: 6 months in prison. The guy's family freaked out and hired the best attorney money could buy. Ultimate result? Two years in prison.
Public defenders are in court all the time. Even though they may not spend the most time on a particular case, they have a lot more experience than private attorneys because they handle a lot more cases. From what I have seen, you can almost always get a better deal if your are represented by a public defender. In the US, well over 90% of cases never go to trial, so the ability to get a good plea deal cannot be understated.
If I were accused, I would be very comfortable being represented by a public defender.