Week 2, Entry 2: The Plea Bargain: Justice or a deal with the devil?

Everyone who’s watched NBC’s Law and Order knows what a plea bargain is. It is an agreement between the prosecution and the defendant where the defendant pleads guilty to the charges brought against him/her, in exchange for a lesser sentence, or in some cases for the reduction of or dropping of some charges. On the surface, it seems like a win-win situation, the criminal is punished, and the government saves a significant amount of time and money that would have been expended on a jury trial. However, it does not always result in justice.

Currently 90 percent of criminal convictions are secured by plea bargains. This of course means that only 10 percent of convicted criminals were given a jury trial. With such a high rate of plea bargaining occurring within our criminal justice system, it is expected in most cases that a defendant will agree to a plea bargain. When a defendant refuses and demands a full trial, they may face retaliation and pressure by a government that is overloaded and in many cases, underfunded. For the defendant of low to moderate means, this can result in a plea bargain for a crime they didn’t commit, simply out of fear of being given a long sentence if found guilty by a jury trial.  This is a real possibility given the track record of some public defenders and court appointed attorneys. 

A plea bargain is also frequently used in capital murder cases to allow a defendant the opportunity to avoid the death penalty. Usually resulting in life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and limiting or even eliminating the possibility of costly appeals, this also seems like a good solution on the surface. However, if we truly believe that the death penalty is a just punishment, then why are we allowing some to plea out of it? Many who are sentenced to death weren’t offered a plea bargain, but rather were “made an example of” by prosecutors. While the emotion behind this is understandable, should our system of justice be based on emotions? Should we be sending people to prison for long periods of time or putting them to death because a prosecutor has political aspirations or is trying to send some message?





The fact is, the plea bargain option in our criminal justice system allows prosecutors to pick and choose which cases they’d like to take to trial. It also provides a means for prosecutors to coerce defendants into taking a “deal”, rather than risk a harsh sentence. This results in innocent people pleading guilty and the guilty getting a break that they may not deserve. Perhaps we would be better served by simply implementing the wheel of justice (see demonstration video below). It wouldn’t be much more arbitrary….





In conclusion, this is not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote The Bill of Rights.  In many ways, the jury trial has disappeared-and we must do everything we can to bring it back.  Plea bargains need more limitations placed upon them and there must be a clearly defined and equitable standard for offering them.  Coercion and intimidation should not be the cornerstone of our legal system.