Councilman Gallagher was accused of having raped a woman whom he had a meeting with last July. One side says the sex was consensual and the other says it wasn’t and that he raped her. When the case was dismissed by the judge because of unfair and irrelevant questions, the Councilman was offered a plea bargain. Gallagher was first offered a plea bargain that would keep him out of jail but he would have to admit being guilty of committing the above accusations. He denied that offer and was made another.…
When a justice system replaces jury trials with plea negotiations it contradicts the fair rules of evidence in front of a judge or a jury. Plea negotiations are very different from the formal process. Criminals end up of facing sentences that are lighter while victims are left unsatisfied. Plea Bargaining is very private which can affect the outcome and will not benefit the everybody. While the bargain might help that receive less severe penalties than a conviction at trial, the bargain may still leave you with a criminal record that can have a huge affect in the future. For example, in Erma Stewart’s case after she chose to plea guilty her entire life changed. As she explained she could not afford to pay her probation fines due to the fact…
Yet, all these are reasons are unfair and can be bias towards an individual, especially the three one, because most of the times, a person is being forced to accepted the plea bargain either by threat (take the 3-5yr sentence, or get a 15-20yr sentence), or the defendant has to accept the plea because of financial hardships. This is way I feel we should get rid of plea bargains, because it is not doing what’s it is designed to do. Also, we are having more innocent individuals pleaded guilties, which the Innocent Project helped, proved that the plea bargains are bias and flawed. Plea bargains should only be accepted, if the defendant either caught red-hand, or after court cases, such as being find guilty, but decides to giving information to…
Using the fairness and justice decision-making process it made me decide that the use of plea bargaining was unethical; due to the fact that it was not fair that criminals who have committed unlawful acts like rape, robbery, and numerous horrendous crimes were given leniency just because they are acknowledging they executed the offense. Stating your guilty doesn’t mean they reflected upon their actions and are ready to start a new leaf. They have instigated the felony and it is only right that they get the full consequence of their atrocity. Furthermore, what’s worse is that because of the pressure and fear of being convicted, the innocent plead guilty and the immoral run free and continue to disrupt the peace of the community. In conclusion, there is no fairness and justice when there is plea bargaining.…
Human process many of their thoughts by discussing them. If I have ideas, questions and opinions about my work, sharing them with colleagues helps to clarify, develop and even change the way I think and act. The way in which I respond to the thought processes of service users could encourage or discourage their sharing with me.…
I do not agree with plea-bargaining, especially in the cases PBS presented, but I do not think that the court would strike it down on their own accord. As the PBS movie suggested, there’s a general understanding that plea-bargaining is a “necessary component “ of the court system. Without the ability to move a case away from trial and still obtain a conviction, a possibility of criminals walking free becomes evident. On the other hand, plea bargains convict innocent people because of the aforementioned pressures or reasons answered in question one. In a sense, I think that plea-bargaining serves as a useful tool for the prosecution to obtain larger criminals via the cooperation of someone taking a plea, but at the same time there are outstanding drawbacks.…
The use of plea bargaining can coerce “innocent defendants to plead guilty” (Guidorizzi, 2013, p. 197). Being arrested is a frightening experience for anyone. If an innocent person gets arrested and is told he can get a harder sentence if he risks going to trial; he may accept a bargain for a crime he did not commit. This comes from the fear of going to prison for even longer. Unfortunately this has happened and continues to happen. Criminologists suspect that “between 2 percent and 8 percent” of innocent individuals plead guilty. That means that at least forty-four thousand innocent individuals are behind bars and most from plea bargaining. An example is when Brian Banks was wrongfully convicted of rape and kidnapping “after accepting a plea bargain under the advisement of his original lawyer” (Rakoff, 2014). He served five years of that sentence. This can have long lasting negative effects for anyone that goes through this. Because plea bargaining has caused innocent people to go to prison, it is a negative practice and it should be…
Plea bargaining is not a useful tool. The court systems, in order to save themselves from a trial, “…forces the party into a situation where they have to take a guess about what the evidence is, about how strong the case might be, and they have to make that guess against the background of enormously severe…
When criminals are arrested and about to be tried in front of a jury of their peers and a judge, they are most likely will be offered a plea deal. Now this plea deal if it is accepted by the offender will stand as their punishment for the crime committed without having to go through court and trial which in some cases helps to spare the victims from having to testify in front of the person that had wronged them. Rape victims are the ones that are the most beneficial from plea bargaining, they do not have to face the offender that brought them such harm. On another note though these offenders are not serving the time that they would originally be given if gone to trial so the victims feel as though there is an injustice to plea bargaining. People that are harmed want their offenders to serve the most time they can so that they are given time to heal and recover from these inhumane acts of committed against them. “The Bureau of Justice Statistics, after studying partial data on state-court felony prosecutions nationwide, found that from 1986 to 2006 the ratio of pleas to trials nearly doubled.” (Oppel, 2011)…
The time at which plea bargaining began in the United States isn’t the only controversy surrounding this important issue. Some of the other problems surrounding plea bargaining in the United States are false confessions, in which an otherwise innocent offender pleads guilty to a crime he or she did not commit, simply to avoid the possibility of being found guilty at trial. It is hard to understand why an individual would even consider doing that, however some defendants feel that they will be better off by just admitting to the crime, even when they had nothing at all to do with…
I am also a firm believer in convicting on a lesser charge if the evidence does not support the more serious crime that has been committed. While some people are for plea bargaining, there are several people who are against bargaining with justice. Plea bargains can make the court system flow a lot faster and easier.…
Due to the financial crisis there have been many changes made to government programs to reduce costs and help with debt. Many of these cuts are happening statewide, in America’s public schools. The first programs that are being cut are the art programs, and the excuse is that the core classes are more important. The argument is that children need to be more focused on test scores in Math, Science, English and History. It is unfair to single out art classes, there should be a more even spread of budget cuts, not just the sole elimination of the arts. There are parents who are indifferent with the arts and they are unfazed by their removal from elementary public schools. What many of these parents do not recognize is that there are actually benefits of the arts that help with core subjects. Some benefits are strengthening problem solving skills, stimulating critical thinking and helping developmental growth. There is also a duel component that shows that there is a direct correlation between SAT test scores and art programs in schools, as well as higher participation and attendance. It has also been shown that the arts can help boost the economy.…
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send the homeless tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” Reference? America has long been the land of freedom and hope to the world, and the American military is what has kept her that way. People have forgotten how important and valuable the military is to the world that we live in. As part of the Budget Control Act of 2011, automatic sequestration calls for $1.2 trillion in lowered federal spending, with 50% coming from defense and 50% coming from non-defense budgets. If Congress cannot reach an agreement, these cuts will reduce the Department of Defense spending by about $55 billion dollars. On September 11, 2001, the United States faced a difficult time in which 3,000 lives were lost due to an attack upon the U.S. by terrorists who hijacked airplanes and crashed them into the Twin Towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and the United States Pennsylvania! That day, 9/11, has become a day in which we remember the lives that were lost and the families who were affected by such a tragedy. We called on our military once again, and they were there to protect our country. I am against automatic sequestration towards the military and military programs for many reasons.…
-If I were Kelly Jarret I would have taken the plea deal immediately when it was first offered to me, as I would have been getting off easier with the robbery charge than potentially being charged for…
Online, physically, or verbally you can be a victim of being bullied. You don’t have to keep things as they are. The question is how to handle the situation (Do you attack the bully and become the bully yourself? Or do you ignore the bully and pretend all is well?) What you do is speak up and ask for help. I would know, because not only was I a victim, I was also a person who stood by and simply watched it happen.…