Is Plea Bargaining Ethical Analysis

Plea- bargaining is something that is happening in our court systems every day. Plea-bargaining is a choice that defendants are making when they don’t have many options. Can plea- bargains change your life? What effects will it have if you decide to do a plea? Well, plea bargains are not for everyone.

When the jury trial process is replaced with plea negotiations, we lose trust and reliability in the system. When we give efficiency that the plea bargain has provided power, it comes at a substantial cost. People who are indeed innocent of the crimes they were convicted have now been influenced into pleading guilty for the sake of efficiency. Not to mention the collateral consequences that accompany a person when they plead out. It also undermines the reliability of convictions in general (Gilchrist, 2011). Although she was innocent of the charges brought against her, Stewart took the plea. However, her choice had dire consequences, three years after, she is left destitute, ineligible for food stamps and government grants, unable to vote for

The Pros and Cons of Plea Bargaining Disclaimer By: LawInfo When faced with criminal charges, a defendant often has one simple goal. That is, to minimize the potential penalty. Of course, being found innocent at trial, and being aquitted, is the best way to avoid jail time and other penalties.

Plea bargaining Name Institutional affiliation Trial by a jury was intended as a truth seeking mechanism, a means of achieving fairness and a way to hold the government to the principles of the constitution. The Sixth Amendment of the constitution guarantees the right to a fair trial by an impartial jury. It gives the defendant a right to challenge evidence presented by the government and provides for a conviction only if an impartial jury finds the defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Despite the right to a fair trial, the criminal justice system is largely a system of plea-bargaining with the outcome being decided by the prosecutor (Bibas, 2004).

The United States criminal justice system is riddled with cases of many varieties. Some have obvious outcomes while others warrant more detailed analysis. However, some cases go beyond the court into other courts, where they are decided, such as Jackson versus Hobbs in 2012. The courts try to lighten the load of cases they have by offering plea bargaining, an agreement among a defendant and a prosecutor in which the defendant pleads guilty to a charge that is less severe than what he or she is initially charged for in the hopes that clemency will be administered. Sometimes, however, people accused of a crime are completely innocent, and it is not until technology is released, such as DNA testing, decades later that these people are proved to

For my article I chose, “Decision Making in the Crime Commission Process: Comparing Rapist, Child Molesters, and Victim-Crossover Sex Offenders” by Eric Beauregard, Benoit Leclerc, and Patrick Lussier. In traditional beliefs it suggests sex offenders are mainly driven by an uncontrollable urge to sexually offend. This article takes a looks into comparing how rapist, child molesters, and victim-crossover sex offenders make their criminal decisions. It investigated how decision-making is involved in target selection. The researchers used mixed methods along with Clarke and Cornish’s decision-making model to evaluate the offender’s actions. In the first studies, sex offenders’ decision-making was investigated using the rational choice approach.

Plea bargains are negotiations between the prosecutor and the criminal defendant. In this negotiation, the criminal defendant consents to pleading guilty. When the criminal defendant takes the guilty plea, he or she is able receive reductions in their charges or sentences. There are pros and cons of plea bargains, but these bargains can be doing more harm than good. Plea bargaining is a simple process but can have long term repercussions. Criminal defendants should not be allowed bargain for a reduced sentence in exchange for a guilty plea because some defense lawyers may not represent the best interest of the client, it does not allow the criminal defendant to take full responsibility for their actions, and the victim and the family will not feel as justice was served if a violent crime had occurred.

• The Constitution is weakened by the excessive use of plea-bargaining to avoid a trial. Research has shown that criminal defendants who exercise their Sixth Amendment right to trail by jury are more severely punished than those who accept plea bargains (Devers, 2011, p. 2). It is assumed that plea-bargaining weakens the criminal justice system by allowing violent criminals to plea out of serious charges and putting the disadvantaged and potentially innocent or partially innocent in a position where exercising their constitutional right to a trial by jury is too risky of an option. Prosecutors are required by the state to carry the burden and prosecute the accused.

Defendants asked for leniency and the prosecutor offers a deal and they take it because they are tired of sitting in jail, but few realize that by taking

People plead guilty for crimes that are not committed by them to avoid trial, but by doing so the right decision wasn’t made.

There are a few things that can be pinpointed as lawful but unethical, especially within law enforcement. The prison system in the United States has a lot of issue that needs to be addressed, but one issue that really bothered me and is unethical is the manner in which the criminal justice system is using the incarceration of the people to finance law enforcement. For example, in Missouri to incarcerate an inmate in prison it cost $60.66 a day per inmate and for inmates in county it cost about $25 a day per inmate. So, in the state of Missouri what they are doing is transferring prisoners to County and paying County the $25 to house those inmates and rather than return the money saved to the people, Missouri

Since the courts are backlogged and many public defenders and judges being overworked, this causes plea bargaining to be used repeatedly. According to Walker et al. (2018), plea bargaining leaves many people no option but to plea guilty even when this is not their best option. This is due to a multitude of reasons but mainly to receive a lesser charge. For example, a felony and little time in jail may be better than risking multiple felonies and an excessive amount of time in jail.

I do not think that the plea bargain lets someone off easy. While they might receive a lesser change they also are having the fact that they admitted to doing something taken into consideration by the court system when they decide on the punishment. I feel that it equals out in the long run for those who end up taking the plea bargain. In small cases yes the person might get off with just probation, but is probation was something in condensation then the crime could not have been that detrimental. They would not offer something like probation to a deranged murderer if they confessed to killing someone.

Ethical challenges are of a universal span. Many people, including police officers, are confronted with the opportunities for violating organizational rules and norms daily. Most of the stories about police officers in the media, including Cops and Criminal Minds, are about respectable police officers, but the intense 2001 movie Training Day is not. Alonzo Harris, a veteran police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is training Jake Hoyt, a rookie officer on his first day with the narcotics unit. Harris’ character is an example of police officers’ potential for corruption. For instance, when Harris misuses the police authority and uses some fake arrest warrant seizing millions of dollars from a former LAPD veteran, now an informant drug dealer, for personal gain. Norberg (2013) agrees that the exercising of the authority makes policing a morally risky profession. While at the armed robbery, Harris challenges Hoyt’s personal values and asks him to kill the drug dealer he raids, but Hoyt refuses, and Harris murders the man himself. Harris violates the police organization code of conduct rules and tries to introduce Hoyt into corruption, drugs, and murder. The ethical perspectives explain Harris and Hoyt contrary actions and sense of justice.

If not, then people are going to completely lose trust our justice system The goal of plea bargaining is to resolve a