Plea Bargaining or “I did not commit that crime but I will agree to this one for 3–5 years or probation” The criminal court operates under two models: The crime control model (that relies heavily on plea bargaining and guilty pleas) and the due process model (that provides a full trial process). A comparison of these models was exemplified in a classic 1968 article by Herbert Packer: Two Models of the Criminal Process.
The issue of plea bargaining has become a very controversial issue within the court system. Overburdened courts and endless dockets are causing the system to collapse and as a result, many prosecutors have turned to plea bargains to reduce the strain. The fast track between probation and reduced sentences has not been without controversy. Although plea bargaining is often criticized, more than 90% of criminal convictions come from negotiated pleas. Thus, less than 10% of criminal cases go to trial.
In a 4 page paper (1,000 to 1,250 words), identify the associated issues with plea bargaining. Does it undermine the system of law? If so, how? What are the incentives behind plea bargaining for judges, prosecutors, and defendants? Explain your answers and cite examples to support your position.
Additional Reference Information crime control model
Below are two Library articles that addresses plea bargaining.
Bowers, J. (2007). Grassroots plea bargaining. Marquette Law Review, 91(1), 85–121.
Fisher, T. (2008). The boundaries of plea bargaining: Negotiating the standard of proof. The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 97(4), 943–1007.
Note: This Assignment will require outside research. Use at least two credible sources beyond the text material. Also discuss how you evaluated the credibility of the resources used.
You may consult the Library, the Internet, the textbook, other course materials, and any other outside resources in supporting your task, using proper citations in APA style
TO BE RE-WRITTEN FROM THE SCRATCH
Plea bargaining and the law
When one considers that 95% of all the convictions in the USA are via guilty pleas, criminal law can be said to exist in the shadow of plea bargaining. Further, plea bargaining does not reflect statutory law especially for petty cases. An example is the offense of loitering to beg that was considered an offense pre-2005 despite the Second Circuit considering the offense unconstitutional since there was no valid law to cast a shadow. In 2005, there was a class-action suit by lawyers to enjoin the enforcement of the loitering statute, yet the New York Police Department (NYPD) made a further fifty eight arrests and issued 641 summonses even after filing of the suit in addition to the 1876 arrests based on the unconstitutional charge between 1992 and 2004 (Bowers, 2007). Notably most of the arrested people pleaded out.
While the traditional inquisitorial system of justice does not usually offer any incentives, transplants offer incentives to the various parties involved, as discussed in the section on incentives below. The incentives determine the course of plea bargaining, making the latter inconsistent with the desired outcomes as proscribed by law systems (Garoupa and Stephen, 2008). In so doing, plea bargaining thus undermines the system of law that has defined statutes and consequences for breaching them; especially in situations where the legal system has no mechanisms to redress the criminal litigation principle-agent problems.
Nonetheless, in the USA where “a plea bargain is an agreement between the state and the defendant…approved by the court, …the validity of a plea bargain must meet certain constitutional norms in addition to any local statutory requirements or rules of the court” with it being “the court’s duty to insure that all the necessary elements of a valid guilty plea have been met” (Garoupa and Stephen, 2008. Consequently, it can be argued that USA’s system of law lessens undermining of the legal system through plea bargaining by having strict control of the process and outcome of the plea bargaining.
However, there are many ways that plea bargaining undermines any legal system, especially the US legal system:
- Plea bargaining replaces and or decreases constitutional trials……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… crime control model …..
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