Week 8:Not Far from the Finish Line

Welcome back one and all to my senior project blog! As the last couple of weeks begin to inch closer, I have begun to ramp up the pace at which I’m doing my research. I dedicated this week in particular to focus on the now third section of my four part paper. This section as I’ve described before is for the work I’ll be doing on one specific case alongside both my mother and my on-site advisor, Mrs. Germana Giordanno. I have learned a great deal of information regarding the details of the case and the process of which we are attempting to lower the client’s sentencing. From my Mom I learned that the psychiatric evaluation is a crucial must-have for the plea process as it shows to the prosecution and the judge that the defendant is not a heartless criminal but rather a person like everyone else. This psychiatric evaluation is part of a larger plea package presented to the judge and prosecution. The other parts of this package can include things like testimonials from family members or a proof of job. The interesting part however is that the defense can tweak certain aspects of the package to show a better character even if certain parts are exaggerated or omitted. For example, this client is having some of his evaluation hidden from the judge in order to present a better show of character. In other cases clients may provide information saying they are pursuing a job but in reality have only had one interview that never got back to them. These are all simple examples of how the defense and general population have learned to adapt to the prevalence of plea deals and how overbearing it may seem on defendants.

In other news this week, my previous post’s hunch has been growing as I have reviewed some of the ten example cases and it seems to be that some of them were dismissed before ever entering court or being finalized. This may skew my numbers a bit but I still hold out hope that my original hypothesis remains true. As I learn more about this dismissal situation regarding my research I will create a new hypothesis and begin searching through the newly opened can of worms. I will keep you all updated throughout and until then I’ll continue on my original path of working on the next sections. Thank you for reading this week’s installation of my senior project blog and I hope you come back for next week’s updates!