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CRJ 501 Criminal Justice, Criminal Law & the Constitution
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The Plea Bargain Controversy
Plea bargaining is defined as a negotiation that occurs before trail, in an attempt to avoid going to trail all together. A prosecutor will take the accused and try to negotiate with them by saying, if they plead guilty some of the charges will be thrown out and they will serve a lesser time. “As the defendants benefit from plea bargaining, so does the government. It helps avoid a crowded court docket, eases the burden on witnesses and prospective jurors, and can reduce the overcrowding of jails” (Peak, 2015). According to Peak (2015), Police and Civil Libertarians are both against plea-bargaining but for very different reasons. Police view Plea-bargaining as undesirable because it allows the defendants to avoid being held accountable and charged with the crime or crimes that they actually committed and because the defendants would take the plea bargain it then allowed them to serve less time. Civil Libertarians view Plea-bargaining as undesirable as well because when a defendant chooses to take the Plea, they forfeit several legal protections obtained from the bill of rights that would have protected them in the courtroom. For example, presumption of innocence, burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, rights to face their accuser, the right to testify and present witnesses to aid to their defense. Another major controversy with plea-bargaining is innocent defendants being forced to enter a guilty (Peak, 2015). I was reading this article and it stated, “The plea bargain system is really based upon coercion, a legal form of extortion by the state. Prosecutors coerce defendants into pleading guilty by piling on charge after charge, and judges coerce those charged by making it known that the punishment will be much milder if you plead guilty than if you lose after exercising your supposed constitutional rights and go to trial” (Weil, 2012). I believe that plea bargains sacrifice too many defendants’ rights because if they take that plea bargain than the legal protections that were included in the bill of rights to protect a them during a trail would become null and void. You would think that plea bargains offer too many benefits to (potentially) guilty suspects and it appears that they get off easy. However, in reality plea bargains allow prosecutors to bring charges against a-lot more people than any legal system could ever process through trails. Less than 10% of federal/state criminal cases end up going to trail, and plea bargains allow a state to prosecute 10-times more cases then what they could handle at trail.
