Two Forms Of Plea Bargaining

1. Plea bargaining exists in two forms, either charge bargaining or sentence bargaining. An individual can either agree to a plea that lessens the charge against them, while still admitting guilt, which makes this a charge bargain. On the other hand, a person can agree to a plea that lessens the sentence upon conviction, more commonly referred to as a sentence bargain. As the attorney for Charles Gampero says in the final minutes of the movie, “out is out.” There lies a major reason someone who’s innocent might take a plea bargain, to get out of jail. Several of the individuals in the movie who were convicted and served time in jail opted for an offered plea for the immediate satisfaction of getting out of jail. The case of Gampero also sheds
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. It’s hard to answer the question of whether or not I think it should be struck down or upheld because I don’t think it’s that simple or that black and white. The Marshall Project estimates that between two and eight percent of the 2.2 million convicts in the prison system are innocent, yet plead guilty to a crime they didn’t commit (Kane, 2014). As Judge Kane writes in this piece, “that is a haunting amount of injustice” taking place in the system (Kane, 2014). From what I could, or rather could not find, there does not appear to be evidence portraying that a call to action to strike down the plea-bargaining process. In 2012, however, the Supreme Court “opened a new avenue for defendants to challenge their sentences on
If a person holds a gun to another person’s head, and asks them to do something or they’ll shoot, is the individual being threatened acting out of free will? I use the word threatened because I think it’s a great parallel for someone of legal authority to present a plea bargain in the way the question describes. Though the word threat is not used directly in the question, I think it’s implied because again it’s someone in power talking to someone in a vulnerable state. The plea bargain, then, is the loaded gun. If the defendant maintains their innocence and avoids the plea bargain, they face a strict trial with the weight of figurative or literal death hanging in the gallows. Maybe a better representation of the weapon in question is a double-edged sword. In the case of Gampero, he chose to accept the plea and inadvertently waive his right to trial out of fear of the alternative outcome and the desire to get the situation over with for himself and his family. For someone who believes they’re innocent of the charges brought against them, it’s a massive moral question of how to proceed. Either you admit guilt for something you adamantly say you did not do, or you face massive court costs, a lengthy trial and your name being dragged through the mud. One way or another, you lose both ends. Because of this, I don’t think it’s voluntary for defendants that feel they are coerced or pressured into taking the plea. In the situation the question presents, there’s an obvious