The Drug Prisoner’s Dilemma

I was editing my paper at the same time as Jared, and I inadvertently deleted his comment on my old version:

I like your piece, but just a note: I was having a conversation the other day with this girl who's an attorney for the Orleans Public Defenders office and I asked her if she thought plea deals should be abolished. She responded, "I can't deal with that academic BS. My clients are 17-year-old kids who are facing 40 years in prison for possession. Telling them to take their cases to trial is not an option." Your essay acknowledges this fact but doesn't answer it. How are we supposed to tell 17-year-old kids to take their chances at trial? If we can't, isn't this all just academic BS?

-- JaredMiller? - 27 Jun 2012

My revision since your comment focuses more on the analogy to PD and the point you make; it's a hard game to overcome. I propose the possibility of a single firm taking up enough cases in one location to have an impact, but that would probably break ethical rules. The mafia beats the game by changing payoffs: if you plea with the police, your family dies. There is no real analogous solution here. The 17-year old shouldn't go to trial unless he is confident that enough people will also go to make an impact (and maybe not even then). This is the entire problem. Maybe the public defenders should default to trial for all, not just the 17 year old, and serve all of their clients rather than each of their clients. Thanks for the note - that is the nagging question, but even academic BS serves a purpose.

-- AlexKonik - 27 Jun 2012