Plea Bargaining Ought to be Abolished in the United States Criminal Justice System

My LD Case Contention One: Prosecutorial Abuse Took Discovering Truth Out of the Criminal Justice System S1. PROSECUTION"S POWER IS ABUSIVE AND ALLOWS ONE PERSON TO CONTROL THE LIVES OF OTHERS The main winner in the plea bargaining process is the prosecutor. What has happened is that a single officer, the prosecutor, now is in charge of investigating, charging -- deciding whether to prosecute, evaluating that evidence, [deciding] whether or not in his or her judgment you're guilty or not, and sentencing. One in which the power to inflict criminal sanctions on an accused, is dispersed across prosecutor, witnesses, a judge, jury, sentencing professionals. We have a system in which one officer, the prosecutor, has complete power over the fate of the criminal accused. The prosecutor is not always as noble as [they] would like you to believe. It's a lot easier to coerce someone into waiving all his defenses than to actually investigate the case thoroughly,[and] take the proofs to trial. S2. Prosecutors have all the power since judges must impose sentences, leads to pleas higher than the minimum sentence Prosecutors have discretion, largely unreviewable by judges, as to what charges to bring, what promises or threats to make in plea bargaining, and whether to carry out those threats if the defendant does not plead. All prosecutors are in a powerful position vis-a-vis criminal defendants. When prosecutors choose to pursue charges carrying mandatory penalties and the defendant is convicted, judges must impose the sentences. The sentence imposed upon conviction will usually be higher than the minimum, as judges"taking their cue from the federal sentencing guidelines"take into account the actual amount of drugs involved in the crime, the defendant"s criminal history, and other aggravating and mitigating factors. In 2012, 60 percent of convicted federal drug defendants were convicted of offenses carrying mandatory minimum sentences. They often faced sentences that many observers would consider disproportionate to their crime. Drug defendants have only three ways to avoid mandatory sentences: Most prosecutors will offer drug defendants some sort of plea agreement that reduces their sentence, sometimes substantially. Prosecutors also threaten to increase defendants" sentences if they refuse to plead. Prosecutors will threaten to pursue these additional penalties unless the defendant pleads guilty " and they make good on those threats. S3. PLEA BARGAINING CONCEALS TRUTH, PROSECUTORIAL POWER DISRUPTS PURPOSE OF JUSTICE Defense lawyers [are] at a disadvantage in persuading prosecutors.the defendant may be innocent and thus have no private knowledge of the evidence of guilt. The danger that bluffing, fear, or ignorance will skew innocent defendants" bargaining is one of the most palpable injustices of plea bargaining. S4. INNOCENT PEOPLE ARE CONVICTED, PROSECUTIONAL POWER DESTROYED THE PURPOSE OF ACHIEVING JUSTICE. LAWYERS ARE IN IT TO WIN, NOT TO ACHIEVE WHAT IS RIGHTEOUS. The U.S. criminal justice system [is] accurate in about 99.5 percent of the cases. The magnitude of the problem might change when one considers the overall volume of cases processed through the U.S. criminal justice system. in the year 2000 there were 2.2 million arrests in the United States for index crimes alone. We also know that about 70 percent of those arrested for felonies are ultimately convicted of either a felony or a misdemeanor. If we assume that the system was 99.5 percent accurate in those cases and made errors in only one-half of 1 percent, rate of error would have produced about 7,500 wrongful convictions. Contention 2: Wrongful Convictions S1. Plea bargaining risks false convictions Important rights are often waived, such as the right to appeal, the right to a jury trial, and the privilege against self-incrimination. Also, if the defendant supplies inaccurate information during the course of plea negotiations, he or she may not benefit from lenient treatment. Furthermore, in exchange for pleading guilty, the prosecution may require that the defendant testify against a codefendant. S2. Plea deals only help people who are guilty and in turn are unfair. Defendants, of course, already receive substantial plea discounts for cooperating with police and prosecutors. But the usual plea discount follows provision of useful inculpatory information"that is, defendants can get a plea break by admitting guilt and implicating others. Like discounts for "acceptance of responsibility," the irony of typical cooperation discounts is that they are only available to guilty defendants. Because, by definition, innocent defendants are not in a position to provide useful inculpatory information to law enforcement, they, as a group, receive worse plea deals than their guilty brethren. S3. Plea bargaining coerces defendants into pleading guilty for crimes they didn"t commit " there are no other options for them in the current criminal justice system. The vast majority of felony convictions are now the result of plea bargains"some 94 percent at the state level, and some 97 percent at the federal level. Very few cases go to trial. Ideally, plea bargains work like this: Defendants for whom there is clear evidence of guilt accept responsibility for their actions; in exchange, they get leniency. A time-consuming and costly trial is avoided, and everybody benefits. But in recent decades, American legislators have criminalized so many behaviors that police are arresting millions of people annually. Plea bargains make it easy for prosecutors to convict defendants who may not be guilty, who don"t present a danger to society, or whose "crime" may primarily be a matter of suffering from poverty, mental illness, or addiction. Plea bargains are intrinsically tied up with race, especially in our era of mass incarceration. Prosecutors make it known that defendants will face more-serious charges and harsher sentences if they take their case to court and are convicted. About 80 percent of defendants are eligible for court-appointed attorneys, including overworked public defenders who don"t have the time or resources to even consider bringing more than a tiny fraction of these cases to trial. Many of these defendants are facing minor charges that would not mandate further incarceration, but they lack the resources to make bail and secure their freedom. Some therefore feel compelled to take whatever deal the prosecutor offers, even if they are innocent. Due to 95% of cases being settled by plea bargains, plea bargains are to blame for these unfair biases. Trials have higher standards of evidence and include juries, which helps weeds out potential biases and ensures fairness. This makes it less likely for innocent people to be convicted. And thus, I affirm.