Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

American Plea Bargains Infect U.N. War Crimes Tribunal

Kirsten Anderberg | 26.11.2003 19:23 | Anti-militarism | Globalisation | Social Struggles | London | World

The notorious plea bargain system that plagues the American "justice" and jail systems, is now moving to the United Nations' war crimes tribunal. The new plea bargaining going on at the U.N. tribunal is a response to the Bush Administration...

AMERICAN PLEA BARGAINS INFEST THE HAGUE
by Kirsten Anderberg Copyright 2003

The notorious plea bargain system that plagues the American "justice" and jail systems, is now moving to the United Nations' war crimes tribunal. There is a backlog of cases regarding war crimes in the Balkans in the 1990's, so the U.N. is "suddenly rushing" through this backlog, by reducing sentences in exchange for "cooperation" and guilty pleas, according to the NYTimes (11/18/2003 front page). The new plea bargaining going on at the U.N. tribunal is a response to the Bush Administration, which pays a quarter of the tribunal's budget. The Bush administration is impatient, and has demanded that the Balkan case investigations end by next year, and all of the trials conclude by 2008. P.R.Prosper, the Bush administration's ambassador for war crimes issues, is pressuring the U.N. courts with new rules, such as limits to the scope of prosecution evidence and allowing written testimony, as well as a new "exit strategy." The new exit strategy resembles the American response to its own overcrowded jail and justice systems. The usual triage now happening in American "justice," is now playing out in the tribunal. They are taking the inmates held the longest, for the worst suspected crimes, and streamlining them into a plea bargain process. Those identified as less threatening criminals would be redirected back to the lower courts. 62 investigations are now suspended at the tribunal to focus on a few senior inmates.

Between 1996 and 2003, 16 defendants plead guilty at the tribunal. Eight of those 16 guilty pleas came after May 2003, once the plea bargain system was instituted. Defense lawyers are celebratory, and one said "We're seeing a snowball effect..." regarding these guilty pleas made via plea bargain. P. Banovic plead guilty on Oct. 28, 2003, to killing 5 inmates and beating 27 others at the prison camp Keraterm. His plea bargain arranged for his jail sentencing to be reduced to 8 years, which could be 6 years with good behavior. Yet low-level guards from similar prison camps, who did not plead guilty, received 20 years in prison. In Banovic's case, Judge P. Robinson wrote a dissent that said these war criminals deserved longer terms of imprisonment, but since all appeal rights are waived in plea bargaining, the sentencing stands regardless of this dissent. One of the really underhanded parts of plea bargains is they contain a clause where you give up all rights to appeal a case after a plea bargain. I think this accompanies plea bargains because they are so corrupt and open to suspicion, that the only way to make them stand, is to ban all re-examination of them from the get-go.

Prosecutors are hailing the new tribunal rules as a victory, citing fast processing and confessions (made under duress) as new evidence, as the prizes of the new system. Yet high court officials at the tribunal are shocked. Victim rights groups are outraged. Legal experts and judges are saying this rush to empty the dockets could undermine the credibility of the tribunal. One lawyer said he wondered if the rush to complete the workload would override the interest of justice. Judge David Hunt, an appeals judge in the Hague, and former Supreme Court judge in Australia, is angry at this strategy and has said that the tribunal would not be judged by how many cases it processed, or how fast they were processed, "but by the fairness of its trials." Judge Hunt said he objected to the plea bargains because they favored the prosecution, not the accused. Judge Hunt said these plea bargains "will leave a spreading stain on this tribunal's reputation." Judge Hunt is retiring in November, so perhaps that aided his stoic honesty, but he said he felt obliged to criticize the new trend of judges assisting prosecutors, to speed up case processing.

American lawyers ON THE PROSECUTION STAFF proposed the new plea bargaining system to the U.N. war tribunal. The NYTimes reports a "senior prosecution official asking not to be identified" said, "Facilitating guilty pleas certainly makes sense from a management standpoint." I find it very interesting that this official did not want to be identified. Why would he hide his identity when talking about plea bargains at the tribunal? There is a black cloud that hangs over the American, British and Canadian plea bargain systems, and everyone knows it. As Judge Hunt pointed out, plea bargains allow judges to work unfairly with prosecution as one team, and the system is slanted towards the prosecution, not the accused. Judge T. Meron is the tribunal president, but he is from the United States, and is arguing he sees nothing wrong with the plea bargain system he was trained in, and practiced while an American lawyer and judge. He claimed the tribunal's switch to plea bargains was a "coming of age" for the tribunal. Those trying to justify this new plea bargain system defend the means by the end. They claim they are receiving tips and details about crimes, due to plea bargains. This plea bargaining is a hot topic in the U.N. jail, which holds 51 inmates, including S. Milosevic.

But this dissent occurring at the U.N. tribunal over plea bargaining should also be going on in American courthouses and jails. As anyone can see, plea bargains have an element of darkness to them. They are coerced statements, made under bullying duress. There is not an arm's length bargaining in any way. Many plea bargains are made under the threat of their lives being taken, such as in the Green River Murderer case. Ridgway was facing the death sentence, and plea bargained to save his life. Senior prosecutors do not want their names used when talking about plea bargains to the NYTimes. The courts believe so little in the validity of the plea bargain system that they ban all recourse and appeal as an integral part of plea bargaining. Plea bargaining will certainly undermine the credibility of the U.N. war crimes tribunal. It already has raised eyebrows due to the 8 guilty pleas since May 2003. Let's not spread this plea bargain disease to the U.N. Plea bargaining does not serve justice or the accused in America, it serves prosecution and management. Judge Hunt's critiques of the U.N. plea bargaining system can be applied to all U.S. courts too. America long ago sacrificed fairness and justice regarding criminal courts, for favors to the prosecution and to streamline costs. It is truly a sad day we have come to, where this demon now infects the U.N. tribunal. Now all of the tribunal's guilty pleas are suspect to coersion, just like all American guilty pleas begotten through plea bargains.


Kirsten Anderberg
- e-mail: sheelanagig@juno.com
- Homepage: http://www.kirstenanderberg.com

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech