Plea Bargains in a Court of Law

Even though many people believe in the terms you do the crime you pay the time, I believe that plea bargains are essential to the American Justice System because overcrowded correctional facilities can pose a major problem and speedy trials could be at stake because it may take up to several years to see these cases.

The purpose of the plea bargain is to allow the process of the accused and the prosecutor within a criminal case to work out a disposition that pleases the court. Normally, all plea bargains involve the accused to plea guilty in exchange for a lesser offense charge or a condensed indictment in return for a lighter sentence. One must understand that not all cases will get approved for a plea bargain. Depending on the case and its factual information a judge may approve or deny a plea bargain. Usually the defense and the prosecuting attorneys go through some conversations in order to reach an agreement. Thereafter, a judge will review the agreement and see that both sides of the counsel will agree on a contract.

There are many types of plea bargains that are available at the prosecutor's disposal. Mainly there are three different types of plea bargains in which all involve sentence reduction. Charge bargaining is one of the plea bargains that a defendant may be able to take. This plea bargain involves the reduction of the charges. For example, if a defendant was charged for burglary, evading arrest search and seizure, passing a stop sign and creating a disturbance all of the charges can be condensed into burglary and evading arrest. Therefore, this cuts most of the small charges and concentrates on the most lethal. Sentence bargaining is another form of plea bargaining which involves the reduction of sentencing in a correctional institution. In addition, this type of plea bargain could place someone under probation or a specific program that is used for that specific crime. Clearly this type of plea bargain is used not only to benefit the defendant but to benefit the correctional institutions and assist the defendant in reformation. If the judicial system would send everyone off for hard straight time all of the correctional facilities in this country would be overflowing with offenders and the tax payer would not benefit. In this day in age most of the defendants who receive reduced sentencing or probation may also have to pay the government a fee plus court costs. The last type of plea bargain is called count bargaining for example if a defendant evaded arrest and was involved in a high speed chase he or she may rack up many counts of passing stop signs. Therefore, a judge and prosecution may bargain to consolidate the counts to one count of passing a stop sign. This would clearly create excessive counts and paperwork as well as a large monetary amount to be paid back to the judicial system.

Some people believe that plea bargains should not be used because many believe that old slogan "you do the crime, you pay the time." According to TIME MAGAZINE (1978), some people believe that taking a plea bargain is the easy way out. In contrast, some people may realize the need for plea bargaining. Some defendants may not be able to afford any outside counsel which would be able to allow them to create a plan for a plea bargain.

I believe that it is in the best interest of the American Justice System to allow plea bargains because at this point in time the overflow of the amount of confined citizens is on the rise and we do not have the funds or the resources to house such multitudes of the accused. Therefore, I feel that the government does need to keep plea bargains in its arsenal in order to safeguard the American public's taxes. I believe that we should allow plea bargains to exist but with careful consideration on the courts behalf. In the future I would like to see plea bargains to be at a constant rate rather than giving everyone the option of opting out of the sentence that must be imposed by the courts.

In conclusion, many people have their personal opinions on plea bargains but we must never forget the reason as to why this system was set up the way it is. Creating a breaking point to deter overcrowding in our correctional system is priority as well as allowing for the courts to have ease within their hearings. We must remember that we all have the right to a speedy trial and if it were not for plea bargains to be in place then it would take many years to clear up cases.

References

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EVERY DAY LAW, PLEA BARGAIN. (n.d.). Enotes. Retrieved from

http://www.enotes.com

No Author, . (1978). Is Plea Bargaining a Cop-Out?. TIME.