INSTALL LINK
My apologies for the file size. Since it’s an exe file in a zip file I suspect it will also set off malware flags.
Introduction and Summary
When I practiced Criminal Law – I found for most people, their number one goal was to get out of jail. Since not all defendants get bail, many accrue ‘dead time’ in custody. As such, the defendant faces increasing pressure to plead guilty as dead time builds up. Many sociological explanations have been given to why this affects the decision to plead guilty. I believe there is a mathematical element and created an app to calculate it.
In my experience – many lawyers ‘intuit’ this concept, but I have yet to see it actually calculated. The concept ‘he’s served most of his sentence is known – but at present there isn’t a precise tool for measurement.
The goal of the app is simple – minimize actual custody. It assumes the user has a fair legal knowledge, and can roughly estimate the sentence on conviction, the state’s sentencing discount schemes, and the important dates in the matter (e.g. the trial date and perhaps a pre-trial special mention date).
How it works
The way we calculate this is by calculating reward/risk – or by finding the breakeven point where it doesn’t make a difference to the custodial sentence if a defendant pleads guilty or not-guilty. It assumes the defendant is remanded in custody and calculates their position as pre-sentence custody accrues.
A simple example would be a defendant who receives 10 days on conviction, and 5 days on a plea. The breakeven point is 50%. If the defendant wins half their cases it results in the same custody as a plea.
The first complication is length of the sentence. A 1 month sentence is not strictly fixed – being anywhere from 28-31 days. This app solves this issue by ‘flattening’ the months using the logic in my first app, the Month Calculator. All outcomes created use this standardization.
Analyzing PSC
The next complication is pre-sentence custody. Simply put – as the time is already ‘spent’ it is subtracted from both sides of the equation. In the same case with 4 days pre-sentence custody, rather than risking 5/10, the defendant risks 1/6, or 1 day against 6. They are in a much worse position.
Finally we need to account for the effects of the discount and parole schemes. What’s important to remember is the defendant can ‘opt in’ to their best available discount. That is to say – if we have a 20 day sentence and on the first day the defendant can get an 50% discount – resulting in 10 days, or on day 10 gets a 40% discount (resulting in 12 days), they’re better off pleading guilty on day 1 and getting the larger discount.
That’s despite the fact that on the second example – the defendant ends up risking 2 days against 10 (or needs 80%), and in the first they risk 10 days against 20 (or 50%). This is because once ‘locked in’ the discount preserves itself, so at day 10 on track 1 (once locked in), the defendant is essentially at 10/10 days or risking 0/10 rather than 10/12 or 2/10 days.
Conceptually this somewhat counter-intuitive. A good way to think of it is the defendant should ‘lock in’ the best discount available to them, as their position will worsen as they fall to a lower discount track. So if a defendant is going to plead guilty at some point, they should do so at the point where it gets them the biggest discount,
Why use an app
An app allows a person to plot the entire sentencing scheme from start to finish, and look at every individual position a defendant passes through. It often turns out, that with substantial pre-sentence custody, a defendant gains little custodial benefit in going to trial, if someone needs an 80 or 90% chance of a not guilty to receive less custody – that’s significant pressure to plead guilty.
It also allows the sentencing scheme to be customized to different states, judges and jurisdictions.
Below is a sample input and output
Analyzing the graph
Reading this graph, we can see a few interesting things. The defendant at each pretrial point checked doesn’t go above 60% odds needed at trial, a respectable number. But if we look at the cutoff point (and assume they preserve the current – red discount), the number is actually closer to 80% (imagine a vertical line from the cutoff).
The app allows us to easily compare not only the current positions of the defendant, but the benefit gained from pleading guilty earlier and preserving the discount. The dotted line shows the continuation of its earlier line – in other words by pleading guilty on the red line, the defendant ends up in the red-dotted line spot at trial, rather than the trial line spot. We can see the position (at trial) if the defendant were to preserve their discount would be a little over 80%. Suddenly, the defendant needs to be very confident at trail for it to result in less custody.
The yellow line spikes up on the final day – where pre-sentence custody is the same as a guilty verdict and there’s no downside going to trial – hence the sharp jagged line at the end.
Summary
To me, this graph shows a lot more about the defendants changing position than I could intuit. It can be customized to each states sentencing regimes, and can be used to analyze and argue custodial matters.
My apologies for the jankiness
The code is a little janky, and as such, users have to input the start date in two positions. If there’s interest in the project I’ll clean it up, but otherwise, it is functional if the user follows the on-screen instructions and at present – that suffices. It’s very much in alpha.
DISCLAIMER
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD THE CREATOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIOAN, SPECIAL OR EXEMPLARY
DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR ACCESS OR USE OR INABILITY TO ACCESS OR USE THE APPLICATION AND ANY THIRD PARTY
CONTENT AND SERVICES, WHETHER OR NOT THE DAMAGES WERE FORESEEABLE AND WHETHER OR NOT THE CREATOR WAS ADVISED
OF THE POSSIBILTIY OF SUCH DAMAGES. THE CREATOR ACCEPTS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OF THE APPLICATION OR USAGE OF THIS PRODUCT.
USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.”””