Plea Bargaining: Not a Pretty Choice
... confess. This picture of plea bargaining is too optimistic. By plea bargaining forcing the defendant to plead guilty, it takes away ěthe morals and creditabilityî (Internet 2) of the system. It also does not take into account the benefits of disallowing plea bargaining, like having fewer career criminals continually rotating through the system. By opting the defendant lower legal fees (unless a public defender is used) and reduced punishment for providing an incentive for confession, which would otherwise not exist, seems wrong. But a guilty plea, in reality, has nothing to do with a plea bargain because with out the confession there is no plea. There are also psychological considerations that ěmay well induce confessions by guilty defendants, such as a sense of pride over the crime, a desire to simply have the incident behind them, or the simple urge to tell someone else what was done.î (Internet 3) In New Philadelphia, Ohio, a judge successfully terminated plea bargaining in drunk driving cases. ěDespite harsh penalties imposed (fifteen days in jail for the first offense, ninety days in jail for the second, a year in jail for the third), in 1986 only ten cases went to trial, while 322 defendants pled guilty.î (Fine 95) It isn't really clear that plea bargaining offers any more significant incentives to confess to the guilty/innocent suspects. Plea bargaining may offer an incentive for innocent defendants to confess, but attorneys can use a plea bargain to threaten the defendant with greater charges to other crimes. Thus, using it in the right manner, but for the most part it lets people get away from the system at low cost and effort. Our system is supposed to provide justice to each defendant, even if theyíre guilty, and the system isnít doing its job when the majority of cases are all plea bargained. Plea Bargaining takes away from the job of an attorney. If an attorney is supposed to try cases, then striking a Plea Bargain is a way out. Each case is another practice run for an attorney, and with an ěoutî they wi...