What reforms should be made to the current way that plea bargaining exists?

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The United States Supreme Court has recognized that plea bargaining is constitutional so it appears that its use will continue to be how most felony criminal cases are resolved. With that being said, many Americans criticize the current practice of plea bargaining and believe that reforms can and should be made to plea bargaining. What reforms should be made to the current way that plea bargaining exists?

Make sure in your research paper that you provide scholarly support for whatever reforms you propose. Scholarly sources are books and journal articles. Remember to make sure that the primarily support for your reforms is scholarly sources.

Your research paper must contain a minimum of eight full typewritten pages of text. You must cite scholarly sources (that is, books and/or journal articles) to support your presentation of information. Whenever possible, which is most of the time, you should use direct quotations (rather than paraphrasing) from original sources (rather than secondary sources).

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Explanation & Answer

Attached.

Reforming Plea Bargaining - Outline
Thesis Statement: The concerns arising from citizens and experts of law bring forth the need to
address the different reforms suggested from various quarters in a bid to make the process more
efficient. The involvement of the presiding judge and administrative control in the bargaining
process are the first reforms required in the process.
I. Introduction
II. A brief History
III. Areas to reform
A. Probability of coercion
B. The innocent plead guilty
C. Prosecutor goals
D. Cost of justice
IV. Reform recommendations
V. Conclusion


Running head: REFORMING PLEA BARGAINING

Reforming Plea Bargaining
Name
Institution

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REFORMING PLEA BARGAINING

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Reforming Plea Bargaining
Introduction
Plea bargaining is a system that involves the brokering of a plea deal between the
prosecutors and the defendant. The conventional systemic methods of solving criminal cases
have, for a long time, been those of trials characterized by petite and grand juries. The processes
traditionally involved in trying criminal cases usually take a lot of time and resources. As such,
the plea bargain system appears to solve the issue of lengthy trials, which involve extra costs
associated with the procedures. Plea bargaining has been upheld in the United States courts of
law but not without arousing controversial debates. The concerns arising from citizens and
experts of law bring forth the need to address the different reforms suggested from various
quarters in a bid to make the process more efficient. The involvement of the presiding judge and
administrative control in the bargaining process are the first reforms required in the process.
A Brief History
Plea bargaining has a relatively short history in the American justice system when
compared with other systems in the justice system. John Langbein traces the inception of plea
bargaining back to the 19th century as he explains that the reforms in the court system and
mounting workload led to the conversion of the “mounting caseload into non-trial plea
bargaining procedure rather than to refine its trial procedure” (Langbein, 1979). It is further
noticeable that up to the 18th century, jury trials went on without the representation of lawyers.
The observation is thus seen to have limited the scope of law representation and even the
possibility of plea bargaining.
The idea of plea bargaining faced disapproval from opponents as early as when it began
in the late 19th century. Despite the disapprovals, the technique became more popular at the dawn

REFORMING PLEA BARGAINING
of the 20th century. The procedure was accompanied and aided by the increased focus of
authorities on the expansion of criminal law; notably the enactment of liquor prohibition statues
(Alschuler, 1995). In the 1920s, various crime resolutions showed that plea bargaining was
becoming common and had grown substantially in the preceding decades. The general reaction
of scholars, press, and crime commissions was disapproval as the practice came to the public
domain. The irony remained to be the continued reliance on the practice even with the
disapproval of the crime commissions themselves.
In the following decades, the court systems became more reliant on the practice. The
process which came around with a lot of controversies became the central focus of the United
States Supreme Court, and in 1958, the court considered declaring the practice illegal but” the
Department of Justice took dubious steps to prevent the Court from deciding the issue”
(Alschuler, 1995). In support of the short approach to justice, which had become efficient in
solving a majority of cases, the Department of Justice strived to make trials through juries more
costly so that the courts of law would be more attracte...


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