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Outline on plea bargaining
Impact of Plea-bargaining Within Our Criminal Justice System
Research paper on plea-bargaining
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Plea bargaining is without a doubt a means for courts, judges, and prosecutors to speed up the process of sentencing to move along their crowded calendars from one case to the next. Even defendants use plea bargaining as a way to keep their offense quiet and avoid too much attention. In general, persons on both sides want to avoid spending time and money, avoid publicity, and avoid hassles. The defendants ultimately want to avoid prolonged prison time.
On one hand of plea bargaining we have guilty criminals accepting lesser sentences than deserved, and then on the other hand we have innocent people having to choose between bad and worse. Such as the cases of Carole LaRossa and Brian Banks, respectively, which will be discussed later in the paper. Both are great examples of how plea bargaining is not a full-proof means of settling conflict. (CITE)
Not so surprisingly, among the guilty and innocent alike, plea bargains are the best and sometimes only option; leading to an influx of cases being settled as such, and settled fast. This influx of quick sentencing has led to mass incarceration and overpopulated prisons. So the question must be asked, to what extent do the ends justify the means? Is it ethical to continue the practice of plea bargaining if it lets the guilty get off, puts the innocent behind bars, and consumes our prisons? All these questions leave one to conclude that plea bargaining is corrupt and does not properly represent a successful justice system.
DESCRIPTION OF THE COURT
The overall intent of the criminal justice system is to deliver justice for all, by convicting and punishing the guilty and helping them to stop offending, all the while protecting the innocent. There are two main criminal systems: state and f...
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... guilty to different charges (Fisher, 2003). In 1848, homicide was categorized into degrees by legislature. This reinforced modern day charge bargaining.
It was also during this time that prosecutors used plea bargaining as a means to fulfill their personal interests. At that point in history prosecutors were usually part-time public employees with fulltime private law practices. Plea bargaining allowed them to spend less time on nonsense trials and more time to spend on the private cases that earned them money. For these prosecutors, trials were a loss of money. Legislature would not pay for the costs of capital prosecutions, so prosecutors lost money if they could not make a deal with defendants to plead to lesser charges. This is early evidence that plea bargaining came so popular largely due to the incentive of avoiding trial and avoiding costs (Fisher, 2003).
Plea bargaining precludes justice from being achieved, where the consent to less severe sentences are given in favour of time and money. The case of R v Rogerson and McNamara, demonstrates the advantages of hiring highly trained legal personnel, which inevitably contributed to their lesser sentence. Thus, making it more difficult for offenders to be convicted.
Indeed, plea bargaining is a “necessary evil” because it brings advantage to all sides, including the prosecutor, defendant and the court judges. Its necessity does not constitute its constitutionality, however, and plea bargaining should be limited in certain cases because it can be problematic in various aspects. In light of its inevitability, a categorization system can be employed to limit the use of plea bargaining and ensure its fair use, and that there should be specific guidelines for plea bargaining in each category of crime. In this paper, the definition and necessity of plea bargaining, as well as its potential problems, are discussed first. Then the paper would introduce the categorization system that originated from a comparative perspective.
Some unusual scenarios have come about due to these laws, particularly in California; some defendants have been given sentences of 25 years to life for such petty crimes as shoplifting golf clubs or stealing a slice of pizza from a child on the beach or a double sentence of 50 years to life for stealing nine video tapes from two different stores while child molesters, rapists and murderers serve only a few years. As a result of some of these scenarios the three strikes sentences have prompted harsh criticism not only within the United States but from outside the country as well (Campbell). Many questions have now arisen concerning the “three strikes” laws such as alternatives to incarceration for non-heinous crimes, what would happen if the state got rid of “strikes” and guaranteed that those convicted of a serious crime serve their full sentence? It is imperative to compare the benefits and the costs and the alternatives to incarceration when de...
Plea bargains are one of the most controversial debates that are discussed over the criminal justice court system. A plea bargain is when a defendant agrees to plead guilty to a crime and in exchange for something, for example a lesser sentence. There are three types of plea bargains. Charge bargaining is when a defendant pleads guilty to a less serious charge than the original charge. Count bargaining is when the defendant pleads guilty for some of the charge, but not all. Sentence bargaining is when the defendants get a lesser sentence than the maximum penalty. Through the course of this semester it has been brought to our attention, multiple times, about the problems plea bargaining has caused. Many defendants are pressured by those who surround them in
One could wonder why plea bargains are even made. One reason would be that criminal courts are becoming clogged and overcrowded. Going through the proper procedure and processes that we are granted takes time. Trials can take anywhere from days to...
For decades, we have been made to believe that criminals are people who have done harm to our society, violating the laws of the land, and don 't deserve a second chance. They should be locked away, and the keys should throw away. Unfortunately, today, our world is full of crimes and our system is getting overcrowded with criminals. However, with recent laws like the plea bargain proofs that there is hope and a way out to every situation. A plea bargain can be defined as negotiations during a criminal trial between the prosecutor and the defendant which result in a more lenient sentence than would have been recommended with the original charge (Farlex). Some would say that the use, or abuse, of the plea bargain, allows criminals
Garrett, Brandon. Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2011. 86. Print.
Today our world is filled with crime. The people committing these crimes must have a consequence for their illegal actions. The system in place to keeping everything fair and safe is called the criminal justice system. This was put in place to ensure there is fairness and justice served to people who break the laws set up by the government.
The system has gone as deep as to making it so that even if a person has not committed a crime, but is being charged for it they can agree to a plea bargain, which makes it so even though the person did not do it the system is going to have them convicted of it anyway (Quigley 1). “As one young man told me ‘who wouldn’t rather do three years for a crime they didn’t commit than risk twenty-five years for a crime they didn’t do?” (Quigley 2). The criminal justice system has scared the majority of the population into believing that even though they did not commit a crime, they are convicted of it.
The statement "It is better that 10 guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" summarises and highlights the mistakes and injustices in the criminal justice system. In a just society, the innocent would never be charged, nor convicted, and the guilty would always be caught and punished. Unfortunately, it seems this would be impossible to achieve due to the society in which we live. Therefore, miscarriages of justice occur in the criminal justice system more frequently than is publicised or known to the public at large. They are routine and would have to be considered as a serious problem in our society. The law is what most people respect and abide by, if society cannot trust the law that governs them, then there will be serious consequences including the possible breakdown of that society. In order to have a fair and just society, miscarriages of justice must not only become exceptional but ideally cease to occur altogether.
“ ….Judgments, right or wrong. This concern with concepts such as finality, jurisdiction, and the balance of powers may sound technical, lawyerly, and highly abstract. But so is the criminal justice system….Law must provide simple answers: innocence or guilt, freedom or imprisonment, life or death.” (Baude, 21).
Van Den Haag, E. (1969). On Deterrence and the Death Penalty. The Journal of Criminal
...nts that they feel they often have no choice but to plea guilty and accept the bargain. Prosecutors can exploit the consequences produced by adversarial legalism in a way that allows them to process a high volume of cases and obtain a large number of guilty pleas. The systematic changes to civil and criminal law in an attempt to avoid the negative outcomes of adversarial legalism only makes the system less useful for citizens.
The definition of justice and the means by which it must be distributed differ depending on an individual’s background, culture, and own personal morals. As a country of many individualistic citizens, the United States has always tried its best to protect, but not coddle, its people in this area. Therefore, the criminal justice history of the United States is quite extensive and diverse; with each introduction of a new era, more modern technologies and ideals are incorporated into government, all with American citizens’ best interests in mind.
Van den Haag, Ernest. Punishing Criminals: Concerning a Very Old and Painful Question. Basic Books, Inc.: New York, 1975.