Plea Bargains and Their Effects on Society and the Court Systems - Research Paper Example

Effects of Plea Bargaining 23 January The paper looks at some of the intended and actual effects of plea bargaining. In theory, the system is meant to spare the criminal justice system from excessive resource wastage that stems from trials. Plea bargaining does benefit defence lawyers and prosecutors who do not have to bear the burden of cumbersome trial outcomes. It also keeps the judicial system moving by prosecuting more cases. However, these benefits come at the public’s expense. Efficient courts operate under the premise of guilty until proven otherwise. Plea bargains transfer the responsibility for proving criminal charges from the state to the defendant. Studies have shown that plea bargains place defendants in a dilemma where fear causes them to settle for charges which do not reflect their guilt or innocence. Furthermore, they create a self perpetuating mechanism in which it becomes relatively easy for more criminals to enter the penitentiaries. These bargains undermine the public’s rights and create an atmosphere of coercion and fear in court. They minimise the state’s burden in determining criminal charges while at the same time place it on defendants who are presumed guilty. Efficiency in criminal justice is enjoyed but this has numerous unwanted consequences on the human rights and social well being of the population. Outline Outline 2 Introduction 4 Forms of plea bargaining 4 How plea bargaining assists the criminal justice system 5 Plea bargains undermine the public’s rights 8 Effect of plea bargains on incarceration rates 11 Social and economic implications of plea bargaining 13 Conclusion and recommendations 14 Plea Bargaining Introduction As the name suggests, a plea bargain is a form of negotiation between the defence and the prosecution that entails pleading to certain charges or conditions in order to enjoy a lighter sentence. Therefore, some sort of bargaining will take place between the two parties. The accused offers the criminal justice system an opportunity to refrain from trial, which saves costs and time, while the prosecutor will offer the accused a lesser sentence or at least a lighter charge. Theoretically speaking, plea bargains have the potential to spare the judicial system the enormous costs of trial. However, these justifications often undermine basic rules of justice, and could be compromising the public’s right to a just outcome. Forms of plea bargaining In the United States, defendants have the option of choosing from sentence bargains, fact bargains as well as sentence bargains. In charge bargaining, which is the most preferred option, a defendant acknowledges their crime by pleading guilty and is thus given a lesser charge. For instance, the charge may be changed from first degree murder to manslaughter upon pleading. Alternatively, the accused person could be facing several charges at the same time. If they charge bargain, then the prosecutor will dismiss one of their many charges. Alternatively, individuals may be exposed to sentence bargaining where the accused person accepts the stated charge and is then entitled to a lesser sentence. Sometimes negotiations can be done on the nature of the punishment. This form of bargaining is not as common as the first one. In fact, some states do not allow sentence bargaining. However, judges have the mandate to review the case and then decide on which outcome is plausible. Finally, individuals have the option of choosing fact bargaining. At this level, the defendant makes an agreement with the prosecutor to state certain facts provided others are not brought into the case. This is the least common type and several judicial systems do not provide it. Furthermore, attorneys tend to stay away from fact bargains because of their perceived unjustness. Depending on the nature of the case under consideration, a defendant may select both charge and sentence bargains. This is especially true if the case is rather complicated. Once individuals enter into this type of arrangement, they may expedite their criminal processes or could still have to go through an extended period of negotiation. This is depends on the facts of the case as well as its seriousness. How plea bargaining assists the criminal justice system The key assumption behind plea bargaining is that majority of the people accused of a crime are actually guilty and see no need to contest the accusation. If no disputable facts exist, then experts see no need for a tedious jury trial. The latter are often necessary in situations where facts have to be resolved in the case. Additionally, it is often assumed that some cases are so simple factually. Investigations and submissions are not always appropriate in these scenarios. Therefore, it is quite practical for the criminal justice system to focus more on the best way of punishing the crime rather than determining whether or not it was committed by the defendant. The negotiation theory is one of the explanations that analysts use to explain why plea bargains are necessary. They affirm that any negotiation should always result in the best alternative to the agreement. Criminal prosecutors cannot dismiss a case once it has been presented and filed. However, if the defendant waives their right to trial, then they may quickly finish with the case and move to the next one. This causes significant cost savings for the court and all other levels that rely on it. One plea bargain could save up to days or weeks in trial. Individuals who choose not to bargain will be subjected to harsher sentences once trial is complete. Therefore, the prosecutor has the upper hand in this arrangement. He coerces the accused person into a guilty plea out of the fear of criminal liability. Essentially, it is the courts that seem to benefit the most from this system of defence because several people would be induced to stay away from trial. It should be noted that the criminal justice process is a rather complicated one. It starts when the concerned crime takes place. Once the crime has been noted by law enforcers, then investigations need to occur. Upon conclusion of the latter, police officers will issue a warrant if the evidence is sufficient for it. The suspect is then arrested and taken to a police station where they will be processed. Crimes committed will determine whether the person will be held or released until they enter the subsequent phase. In this subsequent phase, the suspect will enter the plea, and will state whether they are guilty or not. Usually, the defendant will be told about the nature of their charge and will also be informed about their right to having legal defence through a lawyer. After arraignment, the person ought to go through trial. Sometimes the case could be jury-based or be done in front of the judge. Decisions to select either of these systems will depend on the nature of the crime committed. Trial often begins with opening statements from both sides, then presentation of evidence or witnesses. Finally, it will be concluded depending on the nature of arguments presented. As seen from the above description, there are numerous parties that will be involved in this process. Preparing opening statements, selecting and preparing witnesses, as well as organising the various sources of evidence will involve a lot of money. If an opportunity exists to dispose off the case, then the criminal justice system could be spared from so many extra costs. These financial savings may also be enjoyed by defendants who may not be able to gather thousands of dollars needed to pay lawyer fees. Defence and prosecuting lawyers may also have to do less work. Defence attorneys will get paid the same amount of money that they would have earned if they had gone to trial. Prosecutors will also move from case to case without having to go through all the above processes. This causes them to keep things moving quickly and the same applies to various courts using the approach. To a certain extent, it may be stated that efficient case handling is the primary outcome of plea bargains. If the current jury trials increased by a fifth of their current levels, then the number of judges, lawyers and jury members needed to preside over them would be quite high. It is a fact that most jurisdictions in the United States neither have the time or the resources to meet all these staffing needs. Therefore, the most practical approach would be to reduce the number of cases that come to trial in the first place. Overloaded criminal justice systems simply have no alternative when it comes to such matters. Plea bargaining also assists in prosecuting other related cases that may even be high profile. When witnesses cooperate with prosecutors concerning other pending cases in the criminal system, they may be entitled to milder sentences. The latter agreement is known as sentence departure and is allowed within the country’s sentence guidelines. Usually, this approach is particularly useful when investigating organised crime. Prosecutors may minimise sentences for low level drug criminals in order to acquire evidence against high profile drug lords. In essence, this deal-making allows the criminal justice system to fight crime from the top thus minimising the number of trickle-down crimes that would have emanated from that one group (Brown and Bunnell, 2006). Currently, the US criminal justice system is regarded as one of the most overburdened systems in the world. It processes a large case load and is likely to be overwhelmed. Plea bargaining now accounts for 90% of US criminal cases. The protections and procedures of the criminal justice system nowadays may actually be unrealistic to provide. Another alternative is imperative in enhancing efficiency. Evidence rules and the roles that lawyers ought to play have made the system unworkable because these have now been found to be too costly even for serious systems. When passing the fourth, fifth and sixth amendments of the constitutions, which relate to the right to fair trial, legislators did not conceive that the population would increase so dramatically or that these rules would create undue procedures. Therefore, statistics today may no longer compatible with the ones that existed when making the constitution. Plea bargains undermine the public’s rights As alluded in the earlier portion of the discussion, plea bargaining involves coercion. Prosecutors make it seem like it is a crime for individuals to take advantage of their full rights. They penalise an individual for taking this route by giving them harsher penalties. This condemns accused persons without adjudication. In fact, statistics indicate that persons who reject plea bargains and go to trial get punishments that are four times worse than if they had waived this right. In essence the US is becoming a country that rewards people for making their courts spend money and penalises persons who minimise court efficiency. Minimal attention is paid to the most just outcome. Academicians and political stakeholders will find the efficiency argument compelling. However, defendants are on the receiving end of this strategy. It is not always true that most cases are straight forward; some facts could be in dispute and trials are the only way of dealing with these discrepancies. Defendants are put in the difficult position of choosing between the uncertainties of trial and the certainty of a plea bargain. Trials are unpredictable and defendants will be taking a great risk if they choose this route. However, those who are innocent should be entitled to such an opportunity. Conversely, the milder sentence accorded in a plea bargain is certain and known before hand. Since most defendants are under immense pressure, a number of them may simply go for the certain and less risky alternative. This coerces individuals into agreeing to things that they did not do. As a result, their rights are substantially undermined. US courts have now become a place filled with fear and intimidation. Prosecutors sometimes choose to pile several charges on the wrongdoer in order to compel them to enter into a plea bargain. This approach is one of duress and often causes innocent people to play along. In fact such an approach has even redefined the defence lawyer’s job. Now the individual simply dwells on making negotiations and getting milder sentences than really doing their job; which is to defend citizens’ rights. Defence lawyers are now dwelling on establishing friendships with prosecutors in order to create better agreements rather than defending them in trial. Superficial relationships now exist between defenders and prosecutors because of too much emphasis on plea bargains. Defenders’ ability to survive in the criminal justice system depends on how effective their relation is with the prosecutor. They need to push papers and sometimes let clients bear the brunt of misconduct in the criminal justice system. These defenders have to be polite and gentle towards prosecutors in order to minimise retaliation in the future. Therefore, few of them will question prosecutors’ flaws in court (Bylan, 2005). In the end, it is the common man who suffers. Plea bargains also undermine the purpose of confession. They make this phenomenon a disparaging game rather than an opportunity to transform individuals into conscious and moral agents. Confessions were originally designed to be a form of ritual in which accused persons undergo social and moral healing. Many of them would think about their crime and apologise for it. This act thus has the capacity to transform criminals into acceptable members of society. However, when such a sceptical perception of confession prevails, then it undermines the retributive elements of the act. Essentially, this further alienates criminals from the rest of society. Another problem with plea bargains is that they cannot be retracted. A suspect may have agreed to the terms of an agreement as offered by the prosecutor. This often occurs prior to the judge’s review of the agreements. Once the court has found the terms of the negotiation agreeable, then the bargain may be implemented. This type of approach also puts suspect at considerable risk because judges may not always give their bargains a go-ahead. If their plea is rejected, then they will go into trial. A suspect who has signed a plea agreement cannot recant or appeal later. Therefore, this system keeps them trapped in a guilty claim even though they were not guilty of the same (King, 2007). Issues of racism in the criminal justice system have also arisen from overreliance on this negotiation-based approach. Black and Latin suspects lack the financial clout needed to hire effective defence lawyers. This means that most of them will bulk under pressure from the court and plead guilty. Since a vast number of prisoners are minorities, then it is more likely that these individuals will continue to increase. Plea bargaining thus leads to differential decision making in the criminal justice system. It is now a tool for racial stratification within the prison system. When the founding fathers of the nation passed the US constitution, they did it in order to uphold citizens’ rights. They realised that tyrannical nations often result from unfair presentation of criminal charges. Therefore, they made the 6th, 8th, 7th, 4th, 5th and 14th amendments in order to assure citizens’ rights when being charged with these offenses. All accused persons have the right to be duly informed about their charges, to get due process, to enjoy the presumption of innocence and defend themselves. The right to trial is perhaps one of the most fundamental rights that govern criminal cases. However, with the introduction of plea bargains, now the burden has shifted from the government to the defendant. The constitution intended for this guilt to rest with the prosecution. Efficiency within the criminal justice system has now taken precedence over administration of guilt. Instead of starting with the presumption of innocence as is the requirement in any criminal justice systems, US courts now begin with the presumption of guilt. Effect of plea bargains on incarceration rates It is often stated that plea bargains have the potential to minimise the amount of time that inmates spend during incarceration. By minimising the number of years that a criminal will spend in jail, more convicted individuals will spend less time in jail. It is thus assumed that this saves state resources needed to maintain people in prison. The key problem with this assumption is that it only focuses on the short term effects of plea bargains. This argument only considers the specific individuals who plea bargained rather than all other persons who may be affected by this propensity to enter into negotiations with the court. If one takes a holistic and long term view of this strategy, one realises that it worsens incarceration rates. Contrary to popular media depictions, which make plea bargains seem like a mechanism for letting criminals go unpunished, these negotiations actually make matters worse for accused persons. Trial initially acted as a natural filter for the number of cases that could come before the criminal justice system. However, plea bargains speed up this process and this increases the number of charges that may be presented in the judiciary. These strategies create the conditions for their replication in the future. Some federal states are now able to handle ten times more cases than they would have if there was trial. At any one time, it may seem as though incarceration rates are reducing but they are actually increasing owing to subsequent successes. Too much reliance on plea bargains creates certain inconsistencies within the criminal justice system. These inconsistencies often require different interpretations while administering sentences. However, the US justice system is obsessed with consistency. Therefore, it has passed several sentencing guidelines which require prosecutors to adhere to similar standards. It is justified that this approach is necessary in order to ensure that persons go through the same standards. Thanks to plea bargains, persons with similar offenses and criminal records ought to serve different sentences (Boss &Angarella, 2008). The Department of Justice requires all courts to consider prior record, the current charge as well as provision of assistance to the prosecution when determining sentences. However, this puts a lot of responsibility on prosecutors who have the duty to pursue only the offenses that are easy to prove and are serious enough. Prosecutors thus have too much power in choosing charges that they file since the outcomes ultimately depend on that charge. Perhaps more importantly, too much adherence to these sentencing guidelines creates a situation in which minimal attention is paid to the individuals circumstances of the cases. These standards thus increase the number of individuals passing through the conveyer belt of the criminal justice system. Courts thus end up dealing with more individuals. Incarceration rates are thus increasing in the US. Excessive incarceration rates also contribute towards mass production in criminal justice. Due to creation of a system in which little consideration is given to the merits of every person’s case, it has now become evident that there will be a steady supply of inmates to fill the country’s prisons. Plea bargains perpetuate a system of deception and falsehood within the legal system. The growth of the prison population may be attributed to several things, but plea bargaining forms the bulk of this development. Critics who analyse excessive incarceration rates believe that the current prison system is similar to the military industrial complex. It coerces individuals to accept pleas even for non violent crimes like handling drugs. Several technicalities like violation of parole or not attending parole visits may thus be made part of this kind of challenges in their lives thus causing a person to face criminal charges. Coupled with the inclination towards plea bargains, most individuals find that they will spend an extraordinary amount of time in jail owing to a system that supports too much imprisonment. Social and economic implications of plea bargaining As it has been mentioned earlier, plea bargaining makes it relatively easy for individuals to accept charges than to defend themselves; this leads to excessive criminalisation. The country needs to accommodate the spiralling number of prisoners by cutting costs in other areas of social expenditure like education. Several analysts have compared incarceration of expenditures to social issues like education. A typical example is the state of California. It has reported an increase in expenditure related to incarceration. However, the state has actually reduced its expenditure on higher education. It is a tough balancing for many jurisdictions to meet their citizens’ educational needs while at the same time guarantee them protection against criminals. The scales are tilted towards too much expenditure in incarceration. Similar trends have also been witnessed in Pennsylvania which has one of the most costly universities in the country. When one compares high education expenditures in this state with their corrections expenditures, one finds that a ration of 1:2 exists. Student debts are soaring in this state as they are now at 41 trillion. Problems in Massachusetts have also been evident as a 37% decline in education expenditure has been reported between 2008 and 2012 (Weill, 2012). These findings indicate misplaced priorities. Federal states ought to focus on those social needs which will secure children’s future. It may be argued that rising incarceration expenditures reflect this deflection. If states could minimise their prison populations, they would be able to enjoy cost savings which they can apply in improving their educational outcomes. If plea bargains were substantially minimised, it is likely that several criminals would go through trial. A large number may be found not guilty but perhaps most importantly, excessive charges would be reduced. This would shift attention away from a reactive social system to a proactive one like education. Conclusion and recommendations Studies have shown that plea bargains place defendants in a dilemma where fear causes them to settle for charges which do not reflect their guilt or innocence. Furthermore, they create a self perpetuating mechanism in which it becomes relatively easy for more criminals to enter the penitentiaries. These bargains undermine the public’s rights and create an atmosphere of coercion and fear in court. They minimise the state’s burden in determining criminal charges while at the same time place it on defendants who are presumed guilty. Efficiency in criminal justice is enjoyed but this has numerous unwanted consequences on the human rights and social well being of the population. The most obvious solution towards this problem would be to increase the number of people who go to trial. Some analysts have claimed that this would cause chaos in the criminal justice system because there would not be sufficient judges, lawyers and law enforcers to tackle this number. While some of these assertions may be true, prohibition of the plea bargaining has not always led to this state of affairs. In 1975, this occurred in some states and it was found that the court system was not overwhelmed by this issues. In fact, different levels of the criminal justice system like the police, judges and layers each took responsibility for their actions. However, since concerns about resource shortage are valid, it may be necessary to start with a reasonable number of individuals. If the percentage of suspects taken through plea bargaining reduces by a percentage that is as small as 15%, then it may be possible to challenge the status quo. Defence lawyers may awake to their real functions while prosecutors may refrain from piling excess charges in order to coerce suspects into pleading. References Boss, B. &Angarella, N. (2008). Negotiating federal plea agreements post booker: Same as it ever was? Criminal Justice, 21(22), 46. Brown, M. and Bunnell, S. (2006). Negotiating justice: Prosecutorial perspective on federal plea bargaining in the District of Columbia. American Criminal Law Review, 1063(3), 1072. Bylan, R. (2005). Salaries, plea rates and the career objectives of federal prosecutors. Journal of Law and Economics, 48(2), 627. King, N. (2007). What is left of the rule of law in the criminal process? DePaul Law Review, 56, 386. Weill, D. (2012). Widespread use of plea bargains plays major role in mass incarceration. Retrieved from http://truth-out.org/news/item/12556-overwhelming-use-of-plea-bargains-plays-major-role-in-mass-incarceration Read More