"There is no glory in plea bargaining," writes Professor George Fisher. "In place of a noble clash for truth, plea bargaining gives us a skulking truce . . . . Plea bargaining may be . . . the invading barbarian. But it has won all the same" (p. 859). In the late 1990s, 94 percent of the convictions of state-court felony defendants in the seventy-five largest U.S. counties were by guilty plea rather than trial (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999, p. iv). Similarly, 94 percent of all federal-court felony convictions were by guilty plea (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2000, p. 51). Professor John Langbein, a prominent plea bargaining critic, suggests that Americans replace the word
all in the Constitutional declaration, "The Trial of all Crimes . . . shall be by jury," with the words
virtually none (Langbein, 1992). Plea bargaining has made our criminal justice system far more administrative than adjudicative in character.
CASES
Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357 (1978).
Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742 (1970).
McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759 (1970).
North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970).
Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257 (1971).
United States v. Jackson, 390 U.S. 570 (1968).
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2 months ago
plea bargaining is wrong and lets people make a fool of themselves.