Benefits of plea bargaining

Plea bargaining is the primary apparatus through which judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys cooperate and work together toward their individual and collective goals. The primary benefit of plea bargaining for both the prosecution and the defense is that there is no risk of complete loss at trial. In cases in which evidence for or against a defendant is questionable, bargains may represent a feasible way for the attorneys to minimize their potential losses by settling on a mutually acceptable outcome. Plea bargaining can also be a way for the courts to preserve scarce resources for the cases that need them most.

Prosecutors benefit from plea bargains because the deals allow them to improve their conviction rates. Some prosecutors also use plea bargains as a way to encourage defendants to testify against codefendants or other accused criminals.

Plea bargains allow prosecutors to avoid trials, which are shunned because they are time-consuming, labour-intensive, and costly but carry no guarantee of success. Through the rational use of plea bargaining, prosecutors can ensure some penalty for offenders who might be acquitted on technicalities. Although prosecutors cannot negotiate every case (because that would incur public ire), they can bargain away routine cases or those characterized by weak evidence or other difficulties, saving their time and resources for cases that demand more attention.

Plea bargaining allows defense attorneys to increase their efficiency and profits, because they can invest less time on plea-bargained cases. Disposing of cases efficiently is important for both public and private attorneys. Public defenders are sometimes responsible for handling huge caseloads, and private attorneys can make more money by bargaining than by going to trial. When prosecutors issue charges that are arguably unmerited, defense attorneys can use negotiation to achieve charge reductions. Defense attorneys may threaten to file many pretrial motions or to present an exceptionally zealous defense if prosecutors will not cooperate.

Judges also benefit from plea bargaining. The practice allows judges to preside over efficient trials, to minimize the risk of rulings being overturned on appeal, and to avoid the necessity of making rulings during trial. Most important to some judges, however, is that plea bargains remove the burden of determining guilt, and the practice allows them to share the responsibility for sentencing with the attorneys who fashioned the bargain. Although plea bargains must be approved by judges before whom they are brought, judges rarely refuse approval unless they feel that the defendant is legally innocent or has been coerced into pleading guilty or unless the bargain calls for a penalty that the judge believes is excessively harsh or lenient.

Defendants, of course, also benefit from plea bargains, because they can limit the severity of the sanctions they face and add certainty to an otherwise unpredictable process. Some defendants plead guilty to avoid the stigma of trial, because trials are open to the public and may be reported in the media. Guilty defendants sometimes use the threat of trial to persuade prosecutors to reduce the severity of penalties they face. Some defendants, both guilty and innocent, may accept bargains that seem beneficial to them, especially if they have been detained before trial and if accepting the bargain would mean getting out of jail (e.g., an offer of “time served”).

Sometimes even victims prefer plea bargains to trials. Plea bargains allow victims to avoid testifying in court, which may be frightening or upsetting, especially for victims of violent crimes. Some victims also appreciate the certainty provided by plea bargains; they need not worry about the emotional trauma of dealing with the acquittal of someone they feel is guilty.

Criticisms of plea bargaining

Plea bargaining, as indicated above, is not above criticism. Many individuals complain that plea bargaining allows offenders to escape appropriate punishment for their crimes. Others feel that the existence of plea bargains penalizes those who exercise their constitutional right to trial. Still others argue that innocent defendants sometimes agree to plea bargains because they are bewildered by the justice system and do not know what to do.

Because of such criticisms, some jurisdictions have attempted to ban the practice. The best-known examples of plea-bargaining bans in the United States are those of Alaska and El Paso, Texas. Alaska’s ban from 1975 to 1993 increased the number of trials within a few years, and only sentences imposed on those convicted of minor offenses or first-time offenders were harsher than those imposed under plea bargains (sentences for violent offenders were already high before the ban). El Paso’s 1978–84 ban doubled the trial rate and increased the backlog by 250 percent, forcing court reorganization to enable civil-court judges to assist with the increases in criminal trials.