Plea Agreements: Case Study

More than 90 percent of criminal convictions come from negotiated pleas, also known as, plea bargaining. Plea bargains are used every day at both the federal and state court level. They certainly have their “proponents” as well as their “opponents”. A plea bargain basically is any agreement in a criminal case between the prosecutor and defendant whereby the defendant agrees to plead guilty to a particular charge in return for some concession from the prosecutor. That agreement is usually in the form of a defendant pleading guilty to a “lesser” crime with a reduced sentence in return for the prosecuting authority not having to expend the time, energy, expense and manpower in seeking a conviction in a trial of a more serious charge. An evaluation of the evidence against the defendant is usually a significant factor by the prosecutor in determining whether or not a plea bargain should be offered. If the prosecutor’s case is strong, the chances of a plea bargain being offered to the defendant are lessened. While at the same time, if the prosecutor feels that his evidence is on the weaker side, the probability of a plea bargain being offered is enhanced.

While plea bargaining proposes plenty of advantages through the court of law in America and Canada, it shows some disadvantages as well. First off, plea bargaining seems unlawful to many. Every American is entitled to a right to a fair trial by the court of law. Giving the opportunity to plea bargain is taking away from those constitutional rights. Defendants

A plea bargain is a negotiation between the defendant and their attorney on one side, and the crown prosecutor on the other side. A plea bargain may give the defendant a lightened sentence, in exchange for either confessing to some crimes, or giving information that is related to the offence, for example, the location of stolen goods or the names and locations of other participants, as well as their part in the offence.

Ms. Bowen states in her article that all authors reviewed agree that, “plea bargaining under an imbalanced system does not achieve justice, much less arrive at something that resembles empirical or legal truth, institutionalized plea bargaining best resembles the criminal justice system’s

Around 90% of all cases are resolved in a plea bargain. A plea bargain is when a prosecutor offers the defendant a lesser sentence if they plead guilty. A bargain will often be accepted if the defendant does not think they can win the case or does not have any compelling evidence. Plea bargains do not happen in court rooms. As depicted in the movie, plea bargaining can happen anywhere. For example, at around the 50-minute mark, Jack Ross offers Daniel Kaffee a plea of involuntary manslaughter outside the basketball court. Plea bargaining is one of the few court actions that do not happen in a court room.

According to Timothy Sandefur’s In Defense of Plea Bargaining article, “a plea bargain is a contract with the state. The defense agrees to plead guilty to a lesser crime and receive a lesser sentence, rather than go to trial on a more severe charge where he faces the possibility of a harsher sentence.” We are also told in The New York Times Article; Federal Law on Sentencing is Unjust, Judge Rules that “about 97 percent of federal criminal convictions nationwide were the result of plea bargains.”

My favorite article from section III is article 11 Adapting to Plea Bargaining: Prosecutors by Milton Heumann. The reason I like this article the best is because it talks about and shows the perspectives of new prosecutors about plea agreements. That the aspect of plea bargaining are quite similar to that of new prosecutors and defense attorneys. I like how the author included illustrations of questions from an older prosecutor to the answers to a newly appointed prosecutor. I believe what Heumann tried to make valid in this article is that new prosecutors take into account that plea bargaining is a worthwhile service. I think the author did a lot of assuming in this article rather that teaching the material to his readers. Advantages to

Although many people may not like or appreciate the Plea bargaining clause in the criminal justice system but I think the plea bargaining is a good thing because it helps the criminal justice system to be processed more faster by helping the judges to get rid of numerous of case loads. If it wasn’t for plea bargaining, it would probably take criminals a longer time to appear before judges, which would lead the victims to wait for a longer time to see or gain justice. With that say, plea bargaining is a big helps to the criminal justice system, which I think that promote more good than bad regardless to which degree it results. In the meantime, when confronted with the choice to plea to a lesser charge in return for certain but less severe

Rebecca, I agree with your response regarding plea bargaining. I don’t believe plea bargaining is wrong, because one of the goals of the judicial system is to ensure justice is served. I feel as though plea bargaining works best for small cases, such as theft, where a victim may or may not have been involved in the crime itself. As for major cases, I feel as though the defendant shouldn’t be pressured into pleading guilty for a lighter sentence. The accused should exercise their constitutional rights and remain innocent until proven guilty. Although this may be time consuming and costly, I believe citizens in the community and possibly the victim may feel as though justice was served after going through the judicial process. Reason being is

The United States is plagued by the problem of mass imprisonment, with its prison population having risen by 500 percent in the last three decades. Because the overwhelming majority of criminal cases are resolved through plea bargaining, there is room for prosecutors to reduce mass imprisonment by exercising their wide discretion. At present, prosecutors likely do not give much consideration to the overcrowding of America's jails and prisons when making their plea bargain offers. However, if prosecutors were regularly advised of such overcrowding they might offer marginally lower sentences across the board. For instance, a prosecutor who typically offers a first-time drug offender a twenty-month sentence might instead agree to an eighteen-month

I believe that plea bargaining does serve a valuable purpose in our court systems. Plea bargaining assists Officers, Investigators, District Attorneys, and Witnesses from the prolonged process of the steps involved in going to a trial. In my own experience, I have seen witnesses have to come to court for hours, while missing work, just to see a preliminary hearing put off for another month or more. These processes take their toll on each person involved. I also believe that plea bargaining has to continue based on the system that we have in place. If we tried each case that comes through our court system, specifically in my jurisdiction, there is no way we would be able to provide enough attorney’s to conduct such a large quantity of trials.

Plea bargaining is often associated with the defense and prosecution making “deals” until an agreement is reached on a sentence for the offender. Often times, plea bargaining leads to an offender pleading guilty for a lesser sentence than a sentence obtained from being convicted in trial (Thistlethwaite 2014). Plea bargains can be controversial because some people feel the offender should be punished fully for the crime(s) they have committed (“Plea” 2016). For example, if the offender pleads guilty to robbery and assault, rather than getting sentenced seven years for robbery and fifteen years for assault, they may only get a total of eighteen years for both. On the other hand, plea bargaining is useful when it comes to controlling caseloads. Without plea bargains, courts would become overburdened with cases. Prosecutors can also focus on more serious crimes because plea bargaining helps resolve their case more rapidly. This also helps the defendants save money because they don’t have to spend money defending themselves at trial (“Plea” 2016). There are two types of plea bargaining. Charge bargaining involves the defendant pleading guilty for a lesser charge so that the greater charges will be dropped. Sentence bargaining is when the defendant pleads guilty to the stated charge in order to receive a lesser sentence (“Plea” 2016). Plea bargaining has many advantages and disadvantages in our court system that remain controversial.

The idea of plea bargaining has been established for many years in not only the United States but in other countries as well. Though, many countries have adapted certain mechanism from what is an essential tool in the American justice system, plea bargaining is typically generalized to fit a countries individual needs. However, plea bargaining is ideally used before a case can go to trial to give a defendant an opportunity to serve a lesser charge or serve a lesser sentence instead of risking a chance of conviction and serving a long prison sentence. As we can see, each country has it on rules and regulations to follow when it comes to using plea bargaining to meet a common goal as displayed in their guidelines. All in all, the idea of plea

By using Sanborns paper as a reference, it shows us that the concept of plea bargaining we use today has only been around for about 50 years. In these past 50 years, although still relatively new, plea bargaining has become such an incremental part in the court system. Within the last few years ir has especially picked up momentum. According to the Bureau of Justice statistics in 2003, scholars have drawn the conclusion that 90-95% of all trials were fixed by the process of plea bargaining (Devers, 2011). At that rate, it is not hard to imagine that eventually almost all of our court procedures will be carried out through this process. To put it into perspective, this means that 5% of all court cases actually go onto trial. Typically, plea bargaining is a relatively private process, but as always this is ever changing. Victims’ rights groups are starting to become recognized more and more, which leads to more input being given in the plea bargain process. How this affects the plea process is simple, more input means less flexible sentencing which can usually stall the negotiating process, prolonging an agreement between the two parties. The theory of plea bargaining is constantly shifting, with many viewers constantly trying to decrease the use of it.