Why Plea Bargaining is Still Used Despite Its Disadvantages Research Paper

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Why U.S. Criminal Courts Are So Dependent on Plea Bargaining?Despite increasingly aggressive efforts to reform existing draconian sentencing law in recent years, the United States still incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country today (Kann, 2019). This alarming trend indicates that the nation’s state and federal courts have been kept very busy indeed adjudicating hundreds of thousands of individual criminal cases each year. Although some critics of the court system charge that the gears of justice grind far too slowly, it is clear that even this level of speedy justice would not be possible without plea bargaining. Indeed, the vast majority of the criminal cases in the United States are settled through plea bargaining agreements each year (American Civil Liberties Union, & Trivedi, 2020) and it is reasonable to posit that the gears of justice would essentially grind to a halt otherwise, especially at the federal level. These trends resulted in the formulation of my thesis statement which is, “Ninety-seven percent of federal cases are settled by plea bargaining, and this provides a genuinely good deal to people facing long prison sentences. A prosecutor can offer a lenient charge if the defendant foregoes trial and admits guilt, thus becoming a release valve for mounting caseloads.”The fact that so many cases are settled through plea bargaining agreements also begs the question concerning what would happen to the American criminal justice system without this alternative means of adjudicating criminal cases. Despite its virtual ubiquity, though, and popularity with many judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys due to its efficiency (Ortman, 2020), the practice is certainly not without its detractors. For example, according to Slobogin (2016), “Plea bargaining and guilty pleas are intrinsically incompatible with the most commonly-accepted substantive and procedural premises of American criminal justice [because it] routinely results in punishment disproportionate to desert, and guilty pleas are an insult to procedural due process. (p. 7505)Nevertheless, it is clear that plea bargaining represents an essential cog in the gears of the American criminal justice system at present. To determine the facts, my paper will first briefly explore the background of plea bargaining in U.S. history, beginning with relevant definitions, followed by an examination of the evolution of plea bargaining in the American criminal justice system.BackgroundAccording to the definition provided by Black’s Law Dictionary (1990), plea bargaining is “the process whereby the accused and the prosecutor in the criminal case work out a mutually satisfactory disposition of the case subject to court approval” (p. 1152). Although every criminal case is unique, the plea bargaining process generally follows the same basic steps to achieve more efficient legal outcomes through the nation’s criminal justice system (Falk, 2010). For example, the definition of plea bargaining provided by Black’s adds that the process “usually involves the defendant’s pleading guilty to a lesser offense or to only one or some of the counts of multi-count indictment in return for a lighter sentence than that possible charge [and] plea bargaining procedures in the federal courts are governed by the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure” (p. 1152).

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Likewise, the definition provided by Black’s states that the criminal justice system consists of “the network of courts and tribunals that deal with criminal law and its enforcement” (p. 373).As noted above, the nation’s criminal justice system is already faced with a daunting caseload, and there has been a corresponding increase in the need for plea bargaining agreements even if this alternative produces suboptimal outcomes. For example, in Santobello v. New York (1971), the court emphasized that: “The formal disposition of criminal charges by agreement between the prosecutor and the accused, sometimes…

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…July 13), para. 6-7Taken together, it is clear that there are two distinct sides to the use of plea bargaining agreements as a solution to overcrowded federal and state courts in the United States today, but the sad fact that we cannot do without it while there are many crimes, including many for non-violent drug-related offenses, on the nation’s books.ConclusionWhile it is reasonable to conclude that some form of plea bargaining has existing as long as there have been courts of law, the research was consistent in showing that there are some significant advantages and disadvantages with this adjudicatory alternative. The research was also consistent in showing that for every advantage of plea bargaining, there was one or more corresponding disadvantages. As the nation struggles to respond to the ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic and its consequent economic downturn with unprecedented unemployment rates, it is also reasonable to conclude that plea bargaining agreements are not going anywhere soon and will remain a mainstay of the American criminal justice system for the foreseeable future. Although things are changing and many laws that were formerly criminal in nature have been decriminalized in recent years, the fact that the United States continues to lock up a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country in the world today clearly indicates that current strategies for addressing crime are failing, and have been failing for decades. On the one hand, the hard-line stance against habitual criminals that led to the passage of draconian sentencing laws has reinforced the need for alternatives such as plea bargain agreements, especially since this approach can help solve additional and even more serious crimes. On the other hand, though, plea bargaining has been rightly criticized as being “justice for sale” in a country that is purportedly based on laws and not….....

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