The Defense and Prosecutors meet and discuss the evidence, and after a while they agree what the Prosecution can prove in a court of law. The Defense then gets their clients to agree to those charges. 95% of all cases are handled that way. When states "outlaw" plea bargaining, it never changes that number for what is being made illegal when "Plea Bargaining" is "outlawed" is NOT what is happening when plea bargaining takes place.
If you ask most people what happens during a plea bargaining, they believe the Prosecution bargain away charges in exchange for the defendant pleading guilty to lesser charges. The problem is that RARELY takes place, instead the defense just tells the prosecutor this is what you can prove nothing more and lets agree on that for my client will plead guilty to those crimes.
Most of this is the result of the Prosecution over charging, i.e. they charge the defendant with every possible crime, including jay walking if they can. The Defense then looks at the evidence and points out what the prosecutors can prove. The Prosecutors may grand stand for a while, but sooner or later agree with the defense and the case is closed (The prosecutors can NOT prove Jay walking, for the prosecutors have no evidence that the Defendant did NOT cross with the light as he engaged in a shoot out with the Police).
Now, the Federal Prosecutors have abused some of the laws to get people to agree to lesser sentences, rather then going to trial, but on the local level just does not happen. Local Prosecutors have to deal with the fact most of their cases are NOT front page news thus settlements are possible.
Now, when the Defense and Prosecutors can NOT agree, then it goes to trial. Often this is the case when the Prosecutors know they can NOT convict the defendant of the all of the Charges, but they do NOT want to take the heat of agreeing to a lesser charge.
Another group of cases occurs when Prosecutors give nothing to the Defense, and the Defense sees they best chance for reduce charges is with a Judge and Jury (and that is a hard decision to make since juries want to convict). You never know what a jury will do, but sometimes it is the only option up to the defense.
As to ending plea bargaining, the only way to do that is to return to the jury not only the decision if someone is guilty or not, but also any sentence. The Military Court Martial retains this feature, through it can be over ridden by the commander who convened the court martial. It was a characteristic of the Jury till the late 1600s or early 1700s (it is a little unclear, the transition was gradual).
The modern concept of a Jury, that it be all male (before the 20th Century) but restricted to the issue of guilt or innocent but not the sentence is a product of that time period (for example in the mid 1600s a Maryland Jury was convened to try a woman who had killed her new born baby, the jury was made of 12 women for it involved what happens to women after giving birth, the jury acquitted the woman of murder).
Thus if you want to end "Plea Bargaining" you have to return sentencing to the jury. That way if both sides agree to the charges someone is guilty of, the jury can decide the sentence. Given that 95% of all crimes are the product of "Plea Bargaining" where both sides agree to what the prosecutors can prove, anything else is just outlawing what no one is doing.
Prosecutors overcharge all the time, you can NOT stop them. If you deny prosecutors the right to drop charges, you will have have trials over things prosecutors can NOT prove (or worse, having trials on things prosecutors have decided is at best a lesser charge. For example charging someone with Murder having a trial on the Murder charge, when the defendant has agreed to manslaughter and the only thing up to a Jury is if the killing was Murder not manslaughter. The jury would be told that the Defendant has admitted to killing the victim but that it was manslaughter but the jury gets to decide if it was murder instead. That would be a real mess, the admission of killing the person would be admitted at trial, that the Defendant agreed he committed manslaughter would be admitted at the trial, and they jury being asked if that was WRONG, i.e it was murder not manslaughter.
Thus "Plea Bargaining" as it is done, will remain even if it is "outlawed" for plea bargaining is the Prosecutors and Defense decided what can be proved at trial. When they agree, that is the "Bargain".
Every time I hear someone says he or she wants to outlaw plea bargaining, I have to point out what they want to make illegal is already illegal. What Plea Bargaining is, is where the Prosecutors and Defense agree what the Prosecutors can prove at trial. Nothing more nothing less.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Your type of excusing/justifying of police and prosecutor misconduct is getting old and stale. We do not know what was done to these two individuals to get them to "confess". The courts usually side with law enforcement in cases such as these where the challenged individual doesn't really understand their rights or the alleged perp is a minority. And these two were mentally challenged I've read.....so they didn't stand a chance with the amerikkkan justice system......and you're right, if the original perp was African-american, all were open to charges and these two 'won' the prize...what about Brown and Martin.....they were African-american. Did they deserve their 'punishment'? Just a question as to your mindset.
