If she pled guilty, she would be out of prison, she pled innocent and was sentenced to life

For those of you who don't seem to be able to understand why anyone would plead guilty if they didn't commit the crime, consider this one story.
It is a little bit unusual (not that this type of thing is really that unusual but it's just a particularly extreme case of it), but it clearly illustrates the point.

A woman was offered a plea bargain. If she had pled guilty, she would have been immediately released from prison.
But she did not accept the plea bargain and pled innocent at trial.
Instead she was sentenced to life in prison.

Are you starting to get any understanding of why people plead guilty, regardless of whether they are guilty or not, and why such a small percentage of cases go to trial?

Like was stated before, this is an extreme case of this, but this type of thing is very common.

A Missouri judge sentenced a 60-year-old woman to spend the rest of her life behind bars without the possibility of parole, after she was found guilty by a jury of murder. She was accused of murdering her husband in their home and staging the scene to make it look like a break-in, to try to get the insurance money.

The judge in the case was Shane T. Alexander, and the woman's name is Viola Bowman.
The murder involved a 2012 shooting of her husband, Albert "Rusty" Bowman.

The woman had already been waiting more than 5 years in prison before her trial when she was offered the plea deal. She rejected a deal from prosecutors that would have effectively resulted in her release for time served if she pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

Rusty Bowman was found dead on November 7, 2012 in his Northland home at 5530 N.E. Munger Road. He was covered in blood in his recliner when first responders arrived, summoned to the house with a 911 call placed by his wife. Nearly two years after the homicide, police took Bowman in for questioning and let her go. She was later arrested in January 2015. She spent roughly six-and-a-half years awaiting her day in court. At trial, prosecutors alleged Bowman staged a break-in at the home and shot her husband twice, striking him in the head and chest. Her demeanor was considered odd by emergency workers and she made inconsistent statements to investigators, who questioned her theory that a burglar was responsible, prosecutors said. They noted that items like a laptop, car keys and a wallet were not stolen from the home. Prosecutors also contended that Bowman benefited from a life insurance policy in the wake of her husband's death.

She claims she was at Walmart at the time of the shooting, and claims she is innocent.

The trial was held in Clay County, Missouri.

Robert Lee Sanders, the assistant prosecutor, recommended to the judge that Bowman be imprisoned for life. He accused her of being a "cold, calculating manipulator" and said her husband "deserves no less for justice."

Before reading out the sentence, Judge Alexander said that requests for leniency in sentencing for a first-degree murder conviction "simply cannot be granted" under the law. He also said that the court is convinced of Bowman's guilt.​

Viola Bowman sentenced to life in prison for husband’s murder | The Kansas City Star
Bill Lukitsch, November 10, 2021

Seems they determined she was guilty based more on a hunch, due to her apparent emotional reaction and the fact that the story she told wasn't entirely consistent.
This woman could likely be guilty, but she could also likely be innocent.


Here's another case where a woman decided to plead guilty despite having a fair chance of being found innocent at trial:
woman takes plea bargain rather than let self-defense case go to trial

Here's another story of a man who was offered a plea bargain for 3 years. When he refused, he ended up being sentenced to 15 years, due to mandatory minimum sentencing in the law. (The man's name is Anthony Papa)
I Turned Down 3 Years in Prison and Ended Up With 15 to Life | Drug Policy Alliance

 

What do you propose be done? If you eliminate plea bargaining you'll force every case, from littering to capital murder, to go to trial.

 

This raises a lot of questions.
Why did she have to wait 5 years in prison before her trial? That's just unacceptable.
Plea bargaining is a problem in some cases. I recall a case from some years ago when a man was offered a plea bargain for a crime which carried a 30 month sentence, and to get him to accept it the prosecuters loaded on extra charges which would have resulted in a 30 year sentence. He killed himself.
Every person should get a fair trial, not a duscussion and possible blackmail from the prosecuters. That's called justice.

 

if she was at walmart, there should have been video

 

It happens many times. If a person is found guilty by a jury - it does not means he is guilty, it means a jury found him guilty. Good lawyer can help. but good lawyers are expensive, sometimes a good lawyer can prove you are innocent, but it will cost you a house and your pension. What is the solution? No idea.
I read a book 'Doing time as a spy' by John Kiriakou where he explains why he agreed to plead guilty.

 

That is how a plea bargain works.

Case in point, I was assaulted by two teens in 2007. It was premeditated, in a planned ambush attack, and they were both armed with metal pipes. I was one of over a dozen people they targeted in the same way.

However, they were caught, and when the DA called me in for the usual talk about "Victim Restitution", I found out it is basically a payoff to the victim to agree to a lesser sentence. My response?

Keep the money, slam them.

And that is what happened. He sat in jail until he was 18, then pled guilty to several charges, including laying in wait and assault with a deadly weapon. And got sentenced to 20 years.

His alternative? Well, then he would face similar charges not only against me, but the other dozen or more that he had done that to. With the DA asking the judge to make the sentences consecutive because of the number of premeditated attacks. One of which was against a pregnant woman. Even his own cousin flipped against him, and pled guilty to the theft but not the assault.

When offered such a deal and you still go to trial, you are literally rolling the dice. She took the chance, and crapped out.

 

That's not extremely uncommon in murder cases. If you get an overworked public-provided defense lawyer, it is going to take them a long time to prepare. If you are facing the likely possibility of life in prison, 5 years is not that long to wait if it maximizes the chances of being found not guilty at trial.

Of course the prisoner is entitled to a trial much sooner than that, but if they take the trial as soon as possible, the way the system is set up they are near guaranteed to lose. Many prisoners have even sabotaged themselves by having their trials too soon, and then sabotaged themselves again by making an appeal as soon as possible, before more evidence could be gathered that would help their case. Prosecutors have many tactics they can use to delay things for as long as possible, if they want. Normal trials usually take between 6 to 18 months to happen, with 14 to 16 months being most common.

This is a complicated issue we should probably discuss in a separate thread.

 

That would probably not have been helpful to investigators in this case, since they could not be sure at exactly what time the husband was killed. He might have been killed and then she went to Walmart, or she might have gone to Walmart and then came back home and killed her husband.

 

I am not sure she should have been offered the manslaughter plea deal to begin with.

 

She was offered the plea bargain because the evidence was so weak. The prosecutor was not sure they could win a conviction at trial.

It wasn't going to look good to the justice system if she had already spent 5 years in prison but was then found "not guilty".

 

you would still want to confirm what time she went to walmart

 

prison or jail awaiting trial? never heard of someone going to prison to await trial (unless they were found guilty of another crime)

 

Then you seem to be woefully ignorant about how the justice system works.

Especially since this was a murder case. Do you think they knock on the door of someone who they are charging with murder and tell them there is going to be trial, and then they are not going to be arrested or put in jail before the trial ends?
It is completely normal for people accused of even smaller crimes (like motorcycle theft, for example) to spend 14 months in prison before trial, if they cannot afford bail. Of course a lot of these people just plead guilty long before the trial and don't have to wait that long.

The defense can't prepare, or have time for responding to the prosecutor's evidence, or make various motions to the judge that could help their case, if the trial happens before that.
Obviously if you're facing the possibility of life in prison, you don't want to rush things, you want every possible preparation to be made that might help your chances at trial.

I'm sure investigators probably already did. It wouldn't have proved anything relevant to this case.

It's also just as likely the investigators did not bother to verify her story. If she claims she was only at Walmart for 1 hour, and the victim could have died anywhere within a 2 hour timeframe, that doesn't do anything to help her case, does it?

 

they go to jail to await trial.... not prison

 

You are aware that pre-trial jail conditions are usually worse than prison?

 

I have never heard of anyone going to prison to await trial