The upside of accepting a plea deal usually involves the defendant's pleading guilty to a lesser charge, or to only one of several charges. The agreements allow prosecutors to turn their attention and resources on other cases, and reduce the number of trials that judges need to attend. Though by accepting a plea deal one pleads guilty to one charge which usually results on your record forever because you plead guilty and didn't take your chance of proving your innocence by going to trial. For example if Larry Servedio did not want to accept his plea deal of two consecutive state prison terms of seven-and-a-half years by pleading guilty to two felony counts of second-degree kidnapping and go to trial he would face the possibility of losing the case and be sentenced to longer terms in prison. For the prosecution it saves them time but most important it helps the judges not overcrowd prisons by sentencing criminals to short terms which usually keeps them within their county lines.
For the defendant, the most significant benefit to plea bargaining is to take away the uncertainty of a criminal trial and to avoid the maximum sentence. Society also benefits from plea bargaining since the agreements lessen court congestion and free up prosecutors to handle more cases. The Cons of Plea
There are many issues associated with plea bargaining. The accused could benefit with the possibility of a reduced or combined charges, reduced attorney fees, and the chance of a reduced or shorter sentence that may be imposed by going to trial. Plea bargaining can also give the prosecutors the ability to convict the accused even if they have a weak case and there is question whether or not they can get a conviction. It also will save time and resources necessary for trial. This will apply to defense attorneys as well, they may be unsure of their ability to get an acquittal for their client; however, in some cases the accused many know in his heart that he is innocent and want to go to trial.
A defense lawyer who has a heavy workload may persuade the criminal defendant to take the plea, which gives up an important constitutional right, a right to trial, in order to close many cases that he or she may be currently handling as swiftly as possible. Plea bargaining can also stir up ethical issues since criminal defendants can get off too easily with deductions in sentencing. Once a bargain for a reduced sentence is given, the victim may not be too fond of this adjustment from the original charge. The victim and their family could feel as if the justice system failed them, especially if the criminal defendant did not receive the punishment that they
Purpose: One of the purposes of the ban on plea bargaining was to create a justice system where individuals could be properly charged, tried and sentenced. Another reason was to set the roles of each level, police should investigate, prosecutors try the case and judges decide the sentence.
Some of the pros include, plea bargaining assists the state and the court to deal with loads of cases presented to them. It also reduces the prosecutors’ work load by leaving the minor charges to settle through and give them the opportunity to work ahead of the more serious cases. It also enables for a less time-consuming and expensive trial as it restructures the accused to agree to the blame and submit themselves to the law voluntarily, giving the judging panel less time to come up with a verdict. In addition to that, plea bargaining also helps to deal away with the trial’s uncertainty.
In the United States court system, many criminal cases are not resolved in a timely manner. One of the more common ways in which many cases are resolved quickly is through plea bargaining. Plea bargaining is defined as an agreement between defense attorneys and prosecutors. (Spohn & Hemmens, 2012) Alschuler (1979) describes plea bargaining as the self-conviction act of a defendant. Today, approximately ninety percent of defendants plead guilty because of plea bargaining.
Plea bargaining is essential to the efficient function of the criminal justice system, where such agreements can conserve judicial and prosecutorial resources and offer defendants alternatives to trial. Plea agreements accomplish this by allowing defendants to plead guilty in exchange for certain benefits, which then reduces the amount of cases going to court. When fewer cases go to trial, resources can be allocated so that more serious cases can be tried in court, while lesser offenses can be resolved quickly through a plea, allowing often overworked judges and prosecutors to devote less time to individual cases, and complete more cases within a given time period. In contrast, if all cases went to court it would be infeasible to devote
Topic 1: Explain how discretion is used in the court system • What power over the plea-bargaining process does the prosecutor have? What power over the plea bargain does the defense attorney have? How does the judge's discretion come into play? The prosecutor is the only member of the courtroom who has the option of offering a plea bargain to the defendant or refusing to offer a plea bargain.
Supporters argue that plea bargains reduce the strain and financial cost of our court system. Considering that that majority of criminal cases are resolved with the use of plea bargain, these additional cases if not bargain would lead congestion in the court system and force the courts to be backlogged for months, possibly even years. The additional cases that would need to be brought to trial would tremendous increase financial burden on our court system. Furthermore, pleas bargains assist the prosecution in other cases.
Benefits to the defendant include the possibility of reduced or combined charges, reduced defense costs, and a shorter sentence that might otherwise be anticipated. (228) Plea bargaining
Plea- bargaining is something that is happening in our court systems every day. Plea-bargaining is a choice that defendants are making when they don’t have many options. Can plea- bargains change your life? What effects will it have if you decide to do a plea? Well, plea bargains are not for everyone.
This shows that By abolishing plea bargaining we subject ourselves to serious congestion within the court's and violate defendants rights. “The system would collapse if every case that was filed in the criminal justice system were to be set for trial," says Judge Caprice Cosper . The court system heavily relies on the use of pleas to keep the system moving; they enable courts to handle a lot more “traffic”—to resolve more criminal cases than they could through
According to the Oxford Dictionary of Law, plea bargaining is to be defined as "an agreement between the prosecution and the defense by which the accused agrees to plead guilty to a lesser charge in return for an offer by the prosecution" This entails that the two sides of the criminal case will come together in agreement of a punishment without having the case go to trial (Plea bargaining, 2015). II . Discuss the purpose of plea bargaining and the impact this practice has on the criminal justice system. According to the American Bar Association, plea bargaining is prevalent due to several factors.
Since the courts are backlogged and many public defenders and judges being overworked, this causes plea bargaining to be used repeatedly. According to Walker et al. (2018), plea bargaining leaves many people no option but to plea guilty even when this is not their best option. This is due to a multitude of reasons but mainly to receive a lesser charge. For example, a felony and little time in jail may be better than risking multiple felonies and an excessive amount of time in jail.
