Late one August night in Miami, Mrs. Charles Worthington, 67, heard a call from her stepson Richard. She hurried to his room and was slugged to the floor by Richard's pal, Joel Gebhardt, 20. As Joel smothered her screams, Richard beat Mrs. Worthington to death with an iron bar. For three hours the youths sat around discussing how to split the Worthingtons' $40,000 estate. Then they crept into the bedroom of Richard's father, Charles Worthington, where Joel killed the sleeping contractor by firing a .22 rifle bullet into his brain. Next day the youths wrapped the bodies in stone-weighted canvas, loaded them in the family station wagon, and dumped them in a canal 18 miles away, where a fisherman found them four days later.
Spelled out in all its grim detail in Joel Gebhardt's confession to the Dade County (Miami) grand jury, the Worthington slaying seemed to promise that the two young men would soon be facing trial on two counts of first-degree murder. Not so: the grand jury has indicted only Richard Worthington—leaving "Witness" Gebhardt to go completely free as soon as his friend's trial is over.
Bargain Justice. Gebhardt's amazing escape from prosecution has shocked Miami and roused a hot debate over the uses of "copping a plea," that familiar bargaining system between accused criminal and District Attorney that governs so much of U.S. criminal justice. Never declared illegal or unconstitutional, it is often the D.A.'s only means of solving crime or showing mercy, yet it has been abused by D.A.'s more interested in convictions than justice.
One goal is to do away with the need for a lengthy trial by producing a fast guilty plea—a "cop-out." And, after weeks in a county jail, many a criminal defendant is more than willing to plead guilty, to settle for a judge's quick sentence rather than insist upon his constitutional right to trial by jury. To spur the copout, prosecutors may offer a variety of guilty pleas to lesser charges.
In New York, for example, a stickup artist may be charged with assault, robbery, grand larceny and possession of a weapon. If tried and convicted of robbery, he faces 20 years (40 for a second offender). But if he pleads guilty to grand larceny, he can cop out for only five to ten years. For first-degree murder, the choice is equally persuasive: jury trial and possible execution, or copping out for a mandatory life sentence that may be commuted to 40 years, and, with good behavior, be cut to about 26 years.
Unhappily for defendants, copping out is not binding on judges, who sometimes hit the prisoner with a tougher rap than the D.A. promised. In cases like Gebhardt's, however, the D.A. may be so strapped for evidence that his only chance of conviction is to get one criminal to testify against his accomplice. The squealer's price may be complete immunity from prosecution.