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.
Plea bargain is an agreement between the prosecutor and defendant where the prosecutor offers the accused to plead guilty to a lesser sentence or to only one of several charges without going to court. What percentage of cases in Harris County are the result of a plea bargain?
In 1994 there was a man who went on trial for murder, his name was O.J. Simpson. He was on trial for the death of his ex-wife and a friend of hers. The two were found stabbed to death, O.J. was then put on trial for two accounts of first degree murder. He was found innocent of a technicality. This relates to the story “The Bargain” where a man commits murder but is never put on trial and therefore he never was able to account for his crime.
There are quite a few things I am not allowed to discuss, due to confidentiality, but the things that I can discuss are the observations of court hearings, pre-trials, and revocation hearings. I found it to be very interesting how the judge informs the offender of his or her rights under the United States Constitution before the offender states whether guilty or not and that if the offender pleads guilty that his or her rights are then taken and would rest in the federal courts hands. Usually when the offender pleads guilty, they are under oath, being recorded, and tend to get the lesser sentence, but that is not always the case. It just depends on the case and what all is involved as far as the crime committed and the offender’s history. If the offender pleads not guilty, then there will be a trial that forms on a later date.
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
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.
Plea Bargaining is the most effective tool of prosecutors to minimize the time required to obtain convictions. Around ninety percent of cases are concluded using plea bargaining. (Barkan and Bryjack, Page 2) This process moves cases through the system quickly and prevents the need to add more judges and court systems if these cases were to go to trial. (Barkan and Bryjack, Page 249) From the judge and prosecutors point of view, this is a necessary and effective method of managing caseloads.
Plea-bargaining dominates the American criminal justice system by offering a reduced sentence to those who stand accused of a crime in exchange for the accused pleading guilty or to a lesser charge and waiving the right to trial. The problem with plea-bargaining is that it lays a heavy burden on the accused while theoretically reducing the burden carried by prosecutors and the court system. Plea-bargaining has trickled its way into the American criminal justice system disguised as a win-win for accused criminals and prosecutors but has weakened the justice system by allowing prosecutors to score guilty pleas from vulnerable individuals and allowing serious criminal offenders walk on lesser charges. Plea-bargaining severely undermines the criminal
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.
People plead guilty for crimes that are not committed by them to avoid trial, but by doing so the right decision wasn’t made.
For them to know the defendant they would be biased in their decisions. The arraignment clause makes the charges clear and understandable. It used to be that people would be put in jail without the knowledge of what they were put there for. Confrontation clause deals with the witness in a trial. The defendant now has the right to have the witness directly involved be brought to the stand.
There are a variety of factors that have led to the rampant use of plea bargaining. One reason, that it is commonly utilized to resolve criminal cases, is that many public defenders have extremely large case loads and limited funding that often results in what seems to be a push for clients to accept these plea bargains in” a strategy of ‘plead ‘em and speed ‘em through’” (Schmalleger, 2016, p.246). Furthermore, the use of plea bargains also reduces the workloads of the courts both on the federal and state level, as a plea bargain is a much swifter way to garner a guilty verdict than waiting on a trial that can often become a belabored and lengthy process.
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
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.
According to Courts: A Test/Reader, stakeholders favor plea-bargaining because it furthers “mutual interest in avoiding conflict, reducing uncertainty, and maintaining group cohesion (Cassia,
