Justice Systems OverwhelmedWhy Plea Bargaining is necessary.
...e system from becoming overloaded and overworked as it already is. There are advantages to both the defendant and prosecutor by using plea-bargaining. Plea-bargaining has been around for a long time. It wasn’t very popular though until the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Around 1920, plea-bargaining had become an established part of the system. During this time, many studies were done about plea-bargaining. The studies usually reported steady increases in the number of guilty plea rates from the turn of the century. The Supreme Court questioned plea-bargaining about its constitutionality. They first questioned the validity of the plea-bargaining process as burdening the defendant’s right to a jury trial. Justice Stewart wrote that it wasn’t that it supported people to guilty pleas and jury waivers, but that it “needlessly encouraged them (Guidorizzi n/a).” Plea-bargaining was attacked again, and the Supreme Court addressed a claim of prosecutorial vindictiveness. The Court turned down a due process violation claim and found a presumption of equal bargaining power between defendants and prosecutors. The Court stressed that both sides are “presumptively capable of intelligent choice in response to prosecutorial persuasion, and unlikely to be driven to false self-condemnation (Guidorizzi n/a).” Basically, the defendant had the choice to say no to an offer, and at the time most defendants didn’t. Plea-bargaining has many criticisms. The main complaint in almost all documents is how it undermines the integrity of the courts. Critics complain that plea-bargaining circumvents these “rigorous standards of due process imposed during trials”. Another complaint, which has some merit to it, consists of prosecutors being more than they should. When prosecutors are putting together a bargain, they think of the chance of conviction, evidence present, as well as the ability to win the pre-trial hearing. The prosecutor’s duty is exceeded when they decide what punishment will be given. It isn’t their job to judge, it’s the judge’s job to (Guidorizzi n/a). A very serious concern with plea-bargaining is the encouragement for an innocent to accept one. An innocent defendant unfortunately is offered to plead guilty which in case, would mean they did it. Highly reasonable people who have a tremendous amount of eviden...