Plea Bargaining: Unfair Advantage For Criminals

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5 pages in length. The scenario is all too familiar: The prosecuting attorney knows he has a viable case to take to trial whereby a strong sentence will be imposed, yet he is conflicted with the peripheral - and highly influential - aspects of taxpayer costs and prison overcrowding if he take this case all the way through the system. Instead, he cuts a deal with the defense attorney's client to serve a reduced sentence in exchange for the alleged perpetrator's guilty plea. The inevitable outcome is such that the offender - who has now admitted to his crime - serves a fraction of the sentence he should have received - and even sometimes does alternative punishment outside of prison - allowing for the system to be relieved of one more inmate and the taxpayers to avoid footing the bill of a lengthy and expensive trial. But the question remains: Has justice truly been served when the criminal does not receive the appropriate sentence through the option of plea bargaining? Bibliography lists 7 sources.