Plea Bargaining

Plea bargaining can conclude a criminal case without a trial. When it is successful, plea bargaining results in a plea agreement between the prosecutor and defendant. In this agreement, the defendant agrees to plead guilty without a trial, and, in return, the prosecutor agrees to dismiss certain charges or make favorable sentence recommendations to the court." Plea bargaining involves three areas of negotiation, and these are charge bargaining, sentence bargaining, and fact bargaining. Within these three being combined, (FindLaw 2011) "90 percent of criminal convictions come from negotiated pleas. Thus, less than ten percent of criminal cases go to trial." This gives me two main reasons why I believe that plea bargaining should be abolished, or at least used in less amount of crimes. The main reason I believe that the plea bargain should be abolished is because a criminal can get an eased sentence without even going to trial. I believe that in most cases, if a criminal is willing to plead guilty, that shows that they committed the crime and should not have the ability to get off easier because they were honest. While this is the case most of the time, there are some cases where the defendant pleads guilty due to duress mental illness and many factors. If this was the case then every criminal should have that choice. If a murderer knew that he/she would have to serve 20+ years if convicted in court of first degree murder, he/she would probably much rather plead guilty for a lighter sentence. I look at this situation as the criminal finding a loophole in the judicial system and the bad thing about it is that the judicial system allows it. A right should not be able to cancel out a wrong in any circumstance, and especially if the wrong was committed first. Another great reason why plea bargaining should be abolished is because of the SIXTH AMENDMENT (the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed). These amendments were set into place in order to protect the people of our country, and by the criminal taking a plea bargain, it eliminates this amendment. I have yet to find an amendment that states anything about the accused shall have the option of taking a plea bargain to receive a lighter sentence.