Very interesting. It's intriguing how the ideals seem to remain in the procedure, whilst the enactment of the 'justice' differs wildly from that envisaged.
To me, 90% felony plea-bargains would imply that the grand juries are doing an awful job; it suggests that they're bringing many charges that they don't think they can win.
This is presumably one of those tragedy-of-the-commons type situations; if everyone decided to only charge fairly, there'd be less incentives for plea bargains, immediately all of the courts would be clogged, there'd be congressional attention, probably more funding, perhaps procedural shortcuts and it would eventually end up more fair for everyone.
In the meantime, any one prosecutor who decides to do this simply ends up massively dropping their conviction rate and presumably losing their job. So they won't do it (and I don't blame them!).
My guess is that what this needs is a large campaign from activists to pressure congress into making the changes on their own. That'll be really difficult.
Does justice require a maximum penalty for every offense? Is it immoral somehow to plea down a first time DWI to DWAI and spare the taxpayer the cost of a trial, police overtime, etc? Does getting a life sentence vs. 30 years justify the cost, risk and trauma to the victims of a 1st degree murder trial?
I don't think you read my point in the way I intended for you to, and I'm sorry that my point could be misread in that way. I agree with all of your points.
I'm not saying at all that plea bargains shouldn't exist, I'm saying that at the moment there's an incentive to abuse them by indicting the accused on charges that they're very unlikely to be convicted of in court simply because it's known that the case will almost certainly be settled by plea bargain.
Indicting them on the greater charges simply strengthen the prosecutor's bargaining position, which I see as wrong.
We saw this in the article with the warning shot; if the other grand juror was correct and the warning shot was exactly that, then that charge would probably not stick in court.
However, by having that charge, they get to bargain for a far larger sentence, because the potential cost of going to court is far greater.
It also gives an incentive to (if someone opts for court) attempt to get them the highest possible sentence (if they are convicted) in order to set an example to future plea-bargainers.
To me, 90% felony plea-bargains would imply that the grand juries are doing an awful job; it suggests that they're bringing many charges that they don't think they can win.
This is presumably one of those tragedy-of-the-commons type situations; if everyone decided to only charge fairly, there'd be less incentives for plea bargains, immediately all of the courts would be clogged, there'd be congressional attention, probably more funding, perhaps procedural shortcuts and it would eventually end up more fair for everyone.
In the meantime, any one prosecutor who decides to do this simply ends up massively dropping their conviction rate and presumably losing their job. So they won't do it (and I don't blame them!).
My guess is that what this needs is a large campaign from activists to pressure congress into making the changes on their own. That'll be really difficult.