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Ninety miles from the South Eastern tip of the United States, Liberty has no stead. In order for Liberty to exist and thrive, Tyranny must be identified, recognized, confronted and extinguished.
multiplying "unreasonably" the number of accusations against a single defendant … prosecutors may fragment a single criminal transaction into numerous component offenses. In Cleveland, "bad check artists" are usually charged, not only with one, but with three separate offenses for each check: forgery, uttering, and obtaining property by false pretenses. In Boston, the pattern is the same, except that a fourth offense is occasionally added; the defendant may also be charged as a "common and notorious thief.”
charging a single offense at a higher level than the circumstances of the case seem to warrant . . . .
prosecutors charge robbery when they should charge larceny from the person, that they charge grand theft when they should charge petty theft, that they charge assault with intent to commit murder when they should charge some form of battery, and that they charge the larceny of an automobile when they should charge "joy-riding," a less serious offense that does not involve an intention to deprive the car owner permanently of his property.
We here make no reference to the situation where the prosecutor or judge, or both, deliberately employ their charging and sentencing powers to induce a particular defendant to tender a plea of guilty. In [this] case there is no claim that the prosecutor threatened prosecution on a charge not justified by the evidence or that the trial judge threatened [the defendant] with a harsher sentence if convicted after trial in order to induce him to plead guilty.In another Supreme Court decision, a dissenting justice noted matter of factly, on a point not disputed by the court’s majority, that,
. . . plea bargaining . . . presents grave risks of prosecutorial overcharging that effectively compels an innocent defendant to avoid massive risk by pleading guilty to a lesser offense …ABA bans overcharging