New Prosecutors and Old Prosecutors

Today I went to Rancho Cucamonga to plea-bargain a misdemeanor case. A misdemeanor is a crime you can go to jail for, but not for more than a year.

It’s unsatisfying to plea-bargain misdemeanors in Rancho Cucamonga. The room for plea bargaining has an assembly-line feel. Defense attorneys stand in line, waiting their turn to talk to a prosecutor. When a seat opens up, they sit down.

And you deal with new prosecutors. No doubt fine people, but they usually lack the experience they need to know a good case from a bad case. So you almost always get a "standard" offer. If you want something better than that, you usually have to set the case for trial. (Even young prosecutors often get reasonable about their bad case when they’re about to lose a jury trial.) Sometimes, you can get a better deal from a supervisor.

Plea bargaining misdemeanors in Rancho Cucamonga is unlike, say, San Bernardino. In San Bernardino, the lawyers wait their turn while sitting around a table. Everyone chats and banters. The designated misdemeanor plea-bargain prosecutor is a seasoned lawyer. He usually knows a lame case when he sees one, and he usually gets rid of it for what it’s worth.

Usually. Sometimes even seasoned lawyers disagree. That’s when cases get set for trial