Plea bargaining is the act of agreement between the Court and the accused aimed to knock off the sentence. The accused expects the Judge to minimize the sentence on the basis of the fact that the defendant pleads guilty. In the majority of law courts, plea bargaining can occur at practically any point of the court case (Veloski, 2014). Plea bargaining may happen in the period from the accused being arrested to the judge stating the accusations. Plea bargaining may end up in a deal after the jury discusses the case and reaches the final verdict. In the case when the jury cannot make a firm decision, the discussion between the two parties may result in the negotiations aimed to replace another upcoming trial with a plea. It may also happen that the accused strikes a bargain while the case is still on appeal.
Plea Bargaining Ethics
The ethics of plea bargaining are represented by a continuous debate on the rejection of certain procedures inherent in the process of plea bargaining. The United States currently perceive plea bargaining as a rather unstable process. The benefits of admitting the guiltiness are separated from the disadvantages of the trial (Meernik, 2014). The latter can be found in a number of pretexts and are proven to be indefensible. The results of plea bargaining are usually signified by diffident but strict sentence bargains for offenders who confess their guilt.
Nonetheless, cautious overcharging by prosecuting attorneys and charge bargaining should be dejected (Meernik, 2014). The suppositions that serious and flexible sentence reductions are required to increase the warranted penalty are all proven to lack integrity. This includes covering penitent lawbreakers, encouraging assistance from suspects in incriminating other alleged suspects, enhancing the restrictive nature of the criminal justice system, or salvaging convictions where weak evidence against the accused interferes with the accusations.
The Effect of Plea Bargaining on the Criminal Justice Process
Despite its visual transparency, plea bargaining generates a gap between practice and systematic concepts in the criminal justice system. The actual presence of plea bargaining switches the attention from the judges and magistrate to the prosecuting attorney and defense counsel (Abrams, 2011). All of the truth is expected to be found throughout the process of reviewing the available evidence. In real world circumstances, plea bargaining may avert a public discovery of the evidence and perform a number of unnecessary substitutions throughout the process of plea bargaining that may or may not be reinforced by the evidence. Moreover, plea bargaining also regulates the variability of accusations presented by the jury and confines the debate concerning the evidence.
What Would Happen Without Plea Bargaining?
The refusal to allow the accused to strike a bargain would result in a significantly bigger number of inmates in the jails all over the country. This would also mean that the alleged wrongdoers would most probably be obliged to serve a full term without the possibility of parole. Moreover, one should not underestimate the psychological factor. On a bigger scale, this means that the accused would not hand over their accomplices and the percentage of crimes solved would drop down dramatically.
Possible Alternatives to the Process of Plea Bargaining
It should be assumed that there is no adequate alternative to plea bargaining because the current system does not have the capacity to solve the majority of the cases where people are accused (Strutin, 2014). This problem is directly connected to the over-criminalization and the fact that most of the prisons in the United States are overcrowded. This is a problem that should be addressed immediately but the current criminal justice system is incapable of trying these cases.
References
Abrams, D. S. (2011). Is pleading really a bargain? Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 8(2), 200-221.
Meernik, J. (2014). What kind of bargain is a plea? International Criminal Law Review, 14(1), 200-217.
Strutin, K. (2014). Truth, justice, and the American style plea bargain. Albany Law Review, 77(3), 825-881.
Veloski, P. (2014). Bargain for justice or face the prison of privileges. Journal of Justice, 86(3), 429-440.