Opinion by George F. Will: How government’s excessive reliance on plea deals can undermine justice
to the Innocence Project, of 375 convicts exonerated by DNA evidence, 11.7 percent had pleaded guilty. Many of the exonerees, caught up in an intimidating process that can be fast-moving and bewildering, were from racial minorities.Last year, 98.3 percent of federal criminal convictions, and about 95 percent in the states, resulted from bargained guilty pleas.
” — prosecutors piling on charges which, in a context of mandatory minimum sentences, force defendants to choose between risking potentially life-ruining trials and pleading guilty to lesser charges, even if innocent.This “trial penalty” for exercising a fundamental constitutional right is intolerable.
A consequence of excessive plea bargaining is, the ABA’s report says, that “police and government misconduct often goes unchecked because so few defendants proceed to pre-trial hearings where such misconduct is litigated.” Furthermore, prosecutors become less skeptical of their witnesses, and less scrupulous about not advancing weak cases. Defense lawyers become less rigorous in investigating cases that seem destined for a plea deal.
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