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Pros And Cons Of Plea Bargaining

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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 …show more content…

Pleas also give the defendant some certainty in sentencing, where often charges are reduced or withdrawn, and the range of sentencing options decreases when a deal is struck with the prosecutor. The mitigation of the sentence can have a positive effect on the defendant, because it has been shown that longer and harsher sentences do not reduce the risk of recidivism and can be detrimental to the offender. Longer jail terms are also more expensive than less restrictive sanctions, so this can also reduce the spending of state money. and spare victims the trauma of testifying in …show more content…

Additionally, without an agreement it is highly likely that the charges the defendant will face will not be reduced and increases the stakes for the defendant, especially if the charges laid have sentences with mandatory minimums or a large range of sentences. This difference between the full sentence time and the plea agreement can also cause the defendant to theink the plea is a "good deal", although generally the strength of the case is proportional to how good the deal is for the defendant. The finanical expenses of going to court are also a factor in whether or not defendants plead guilty. Along with the costs of hiring legal counsel, the defendant will likely miss days of work and pay for other expenses such as child care (sherrin). This factor generally impacts lower class defendants, because they will not be able to pay for justice and will be forced into taking a guilty plea because they cannot afford to fight charges. This financial coercion will occur indiscriminately for both guilty and innocent defendants and lead to more guilty

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Prosecutors have the power to send offenders away which allows them to make harsh decisions. They offer plea bargains to offenders which often will enable them to do time in prison. Pfaff stated that "as long as prosecutors simply use the tough laws as a bargaining chip, not real punishment, legislators can reap the political benefits of looking tough on crime while avoiding difficult financial decisions" (Pfaff, 2017, P136). Prosecutors offer a plea bargain to get rid of cases quickly and not allow offenders to go to trial because they might receive more prison

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A plea bargain is an agreement between the prosecutor and the defendant in a criminal case. The prosecutor gives the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty to a lesser charge or to the original charge with less than the maximum sentence. For example, the prosecution and the defense may agree to a misdemeanor charge instead of a felony charge or the parties may agree to a sentence of 12 years instead of 20 years if the recommended sentence for that crime is 10-20 years imprisonment.

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In our country, the judicial system, being fair and powerful is still very slow. It has always been very crowded. Since the courts are over crowded, prosecutor’s case-loads are over loaded and defendants wants to save time and money, as the result of which an informal and easy way of pre-trail bargaining came into play. Its is known as Plea-Bargaining. Plea Bargaining is defined as the agreement between the prosecutor and the defendant, whereby the defendant agrees to his or her guilt of crime that has been committed in return for some concession from the prosecutor.

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A plea-bargaining is when a prosecutor offers a reduced charge or decrease the number of charge. The defendant come to an agreement with the prosecutor to plea guilty to the sentence they are on trial. The defendant pleads guilty to the crime they are being changed with in order to avoid a trail and avoid more severe sentence. Plea bargaining consents of a judge that authorize the tail which accepts or denies the defendants guilty plea. A defense attorney is who advocates for the defendant to protect the right of the individual.

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Moreover, once the detainees agree to the plea guilty, they give up their right to contest or appeal their sentence and brings finality to each case. In that situation, the become legally guilty since the defendant is “guilty as charged” (The Courts, 2013, p. 151). The method of plea bargaining streamlines and reduces the time needed for each case, thus, creating a mechanism for achieving efficiency. Under the crime control model, it is important to have finality mainly because it allows cases to be disposed of quickly and it makes sure that there will be a deterrent

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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.

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When the jury trial process is replaced with plea negotiations, we lose trust and reliability in the system. When we give efficiency that the plea bargain has provided power, it comes at a substantial cost. People who are indeed innocent of the crimes they were convicted have now been influenced into pleading guilty for the sake of efficiency. Not to mention the collateral consequences that accompany a person when they plead out. It also undermines the reliability of convictions in general (Gilchrist, 2011).

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1. According to “A Brief Introduction to Criminal Justice” book plea bargaining is a process of negotiation that usually involves the defendant, the prosecutor, and the defense counsel and is founded on the mutual interests of all involved. The purpose of plea bargaining is for defense attorneys and their clients who will agree to a plea of guilty when they are unsure of their ability to win acquittal at trial. Plea bargaining offers prosecutors the additional advantage of a quick conviction without the need to commit the time and resources necessary for trial.

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About The Plea The Plea is a film that tries to inform society of the issues with plea bargains and the overall criminal justice system. In the film, a couple of people who were all innocent where charged for a crime that they didn’t commit. The reason for the charges where, mostly, because they took plea deals due to the pressure that they received either by the lawyers, judges, or/and family members. According to Lynch (2003), “More than 90 percent of the criminal cases in America are never tried, much less proven, to juries” (p. 24). Our System Encourage Innocent Defendants to Plead Unfortunately, due to the amount of crime activity that is going on, the court has to many cases to handle and plea bargains are pushed on people to avoid the long process of a trail.

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Plea-Bargaining and its Impact on the Criminal Justice System Introduction The criminal justice system is made to give the punishment to the accused according to the law. Those communities who have a fair justice system usually get success and equality among all the citizens. There are many procedures which are used to settle down the matters between the defender and prosecutor side. Some are related to the justice procedures and others are used to settle down matter outside the courts like plea- bargaining.

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Mitigating circumstances is an event or condition that makes an offense less serious than it might be. According to Garvey (1998) mitigating circumstances are events or conditions that do not justify or excuse the criminal behavior that was committed, however are considered out of kindness or reasonableness in choosing the level of the offense. The prosecutor can act upon discretion in such case and lessening the punishment upon conviction. Mitigating circumstances regularly relate more to the guilty party than to the offense. Accepting guilt and collaboration with the examination are frequent examples of mitigating circumstances that would have a tendency to a decrease in sentence (Garvey, 1998).

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For those in prison, those who snitch saying the defendant confessed, testifying can be a bargaining chip; the state will often reduce sentence time or

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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.

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