"If you aren't guilty you can have a trial."
Brandy, this is the most expensive sentence you've ever said and you didn't pay a dollar for it.
Let me show you what "having a trial" actually means for the people you're so confidently advising.
You are twenty-two years old.
You are Black.
You are from a neighborhood where the public school lost its art program in 2013, its counselors in 2016, and its after-school funding in 2020.
You are charged with a drug offense.
Your public defender meets you for the first time four days before your hearing. He has 300 other cases. He has reviewed yours for approximately eleven minutes.
The prosecutor offers you eighteen months if you plead guilty today.
If you go to trial and lose, and the conviction rate for federal criminal trials is 99 percent, Brandy, 99 percent, you are looking at twelve years mandatory minimum.
Twelve years versus eighteen months.
You have a child. You have a mother who depends on you.
Eighteen months is survivable.
Twelve years is the destruction of everything you have.
You are innocent.
You take the plea.
This is not a hypothetical. This is the documented, statistical, court-recorded reality of how 97 percent of American convictions happen.
And you looked at that and said: well, they could have had a trial.
Plea bargin admiting GUILT in exchange for shorter sentence. If you aren't guilty you can have a trial.
You seem OBSESSED with America. Kinda weird.