In Arkansas can my brother sue the public defender for pressing him to take a deal and was told don't tell the judge you were pressed into this plea because I will jail you mom?

Comments

• markstos@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  You could likely have a free initial meeting with a lawyer to confirm a law had been broken and get a general idea of their fees and your odds of success.

  Sounds like it would be your brother’s word against the public defenders. Sounds tough.

  Yes, you could file paperwork for a lawsuit. Affording the legal help and winning the suit are different matters.

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• meco03211@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Just trying to answer seriously and not assume too much the answer is a simple yes/no. There is no real barrier to filing a lawsuit. Fill out the paperwork and file it with the court. Boom, you’ve sued someone. The bigger question would be if they have qualified immunity (or whatever lawyer version is similar to that) or if it would actually go anywhere. You’d want to talk to a real lawyer (IANAL). That’s at the very least unethical, possibly criminal.

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  • shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    One extra step, the judge has to allow it.

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• SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  We’ll need more information.

  Are the brother and mom sleeping together?

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  • Banichan@dormi.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    This really is No Stupid Questions, even in the comments.

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  • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I’d rather advise the mom to sleep with the judge.

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• yesman@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  You’re gonna have to explain how a public defender has the power to jail anyone. Prosecutors coerce people to take deals thousands of times every day. Not only is that legal, and normal, the system would collapse without it.

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  • Don_Dickle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Yea but after being threatened to take the deal or else?

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    • yesman@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Yes, that’s exactly how it works. It just seems normal because it’s on Law and Order, but threatening people with prison is coercive.

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  • HelixDab2@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Prosecutors don’t coerce people, exactly. It’s more a case of, “hey, we’re pretty sure we can get a conviction if we go to trial, and if we get a conviction on these charges, we’re going to ask for the maximum jail time and/or fines. But if you agree to plead guilty to a lesser charge, you’ll spend less time in jail.” And TBH, the state usually can convict, since most prosecutors don’t like taking weak cases to trial, and the system is pretty heavily tilted in favor of prosecution for multiple reasons.

    It’s not like, “take this deal or we’re going to break all your fingers and kill your mom”, but it does lay out the risks of taking a case to trial. I don’t think that’s coercive by most definitions, any more than your boss telling you that you can either get to work, or they’re going to fire you is coercive.

    But yeah, the sheer volume of cases that goes through the courts requires plea deals, because otherwise it would take decades for a case to go to trial.

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• aubertlone@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Is this a meta joke regarding a similar confusing post on Lemmy. uk?

  Could have sworn I saw something like that earlier

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  • Don_Dickle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Then can you link said post?

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    • nokturne213@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      really hard to link on a phone at this time also don’t know how.

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• HelixDab2@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  This is… Very confused.

  You need to give more information before anyone can even make sense of this question. A public defender isn’t a prosecutor; they don’t have the ability to have anyone arrested, or prosecuted. The defendant is the client of the public defender, and the public defender is bound by professional ethics to act in the best interests of their client. The public defender is bound by attorney-client privilege, and anything that they were to disclose to the prosecutor would be inadmissible, and potentially grounds to see them sanctioned or disbarred.

  So I really can’t understand any circumstances here where a defense attorney would be pressuring their client to take a bad deal and somehow threatening their client’s mother.

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