Dibor Roberts to go to trial

Dibor Roberts, the woman accosted by Yavapai County, Arizona, sheriff's Sergeant Jeff Newnum on a dark country road, will go to trial on April 23, 24, and 25. She is charged with felony counts of resisting arrest and unlawful flight from a law officer. "Resisting arrest" apparently consisted of not submitting fast enough when Newnum smashed her window and dragged her from her car. (Note: I now have a copy of the police report, and Newnum's actions don't get any prettier when rendered in his own words.)

The county is under pressure in this case, facing unaccustomed protests and public scrutiny. That may have been the prosecution's motivation for offering to reduce the charges to misdemeanors if Roberts agreed to a guilty plea. Roberts declined.

That's a rare and courageous move on the part of Dibor Roberts -- to stand by her innocence and risk a potential felony conviction. Nationally, only 5 percent to ten percent of defendants plead not guilty. Most accept a deal and go straight into the system. Note, that doesn't mean that 90 percent to 95 percent of the accused are necessarily guilty. As law Prof. Stephen Schulhofer told PBS:

The major problem with plea bargaining is that it forces the party into a situation where they have to take a guess about what the evidence is, about how strong the case might be, and they have to make that guess against the background of enormously severe penalties if you guess wrong. So defendants, even if they have strong defenses, and even if they are innocent, in fact face enormous pressure to play the odds and to accept a plea. And the more likely they are to be innocent, and the more strong their defenses are, the bigger discount and the bigger benefits the prosecutor will offer them. Eventually at some point it becomes so tempting that it might be irresistible, especially when the consequences of guessing wrong are disastrous.

The "discount" the prosecution offered Dibor Roberts was substantial -- misdemeanor convictions with far less serious ramifications than felony convictions, which can result in substantial prison time as well as potential loss of some civil rights. It seems the county wants this case to go away, but without losing face.

Of course, if County Attorney Sheila Polk really wants this case to go away, she could just instruct her people to drop all charges.

Let's help her make that decision by leaning on her a little bit. Let Ms. Polk know that the public scrutiny isn't going to disappear. County Attorney Sheila Polk's office can be reached by phone at:

(928) 771-3344

Or by snail mail:

255 East Gurley Street
Prescott, AZ 86301

Read more about this case here.

Dibor Roberts and her husband Merrill tell their tale on their Website here.