When Prosecution Becomes Persecution

       We've all seen it. A new episode of some version of Law and Order (my favourite being SVU), the criminal is brought into justice and has their first meeting with the prosecution. The hot shot lawyer stands up above the sitting criminal, lays down the severity of the crimes committed, and ominously describes the amount of time the wrong doer will be serving in jail for their offenses. Then the prosecutor sits down and stares the suspect in the eye and offers them the golden ticket-- a plea bargain. Say you're guilty and you'll serve a fraction of the time you normally would if you go through a trial and get a guilty sentence. Works almost every time right? Well, this isn't just another one of Hollywood's exaggerations and glorification of the life of a crime fighter. Plea bargains happen a lot, perhaps more than they should. It prevents a criminal from going through their rights as an American citizen, the right to a trail and a sentence by a jury of their peers. It can also give someone a significantly shorter  jail time than they deserve. However, it can also save money on trials and paperwork.

In the article, the author is very clear about his opinion on plea bargains, stating that Prosecutor's "...objective—which, in theory, should be justice," has changed so that their "...goal(s) (are) simply convictions, whether just or not." He thinks that the bargin is just an escape from jail time. The author then offers an example of how Prosecutors make bargains seem like a better option for criminals to get their convictions without a possibility of loosing. The case in question focused on a low level player in and organized crime case, and he opted for a traditional court trial, while his bosses went for a bargain. The man was found gulity, and the prosecutors on the case suggested an absurd amount of jail time for him, while his bosses got a fraction of that. The prosectuors clearly wanted to make an example of this man and encourage bargains, and the author agreed with this thought stating, "Let’s do the math: prosecutors were recommending a sentence for a marginal figure in the scandal of eight to ten times that given to its ringleaders. Why was he “not entitled” to a more lenient sentence? For one reason: he insisted on his right to trial by jury." After reading this I think that if Prosecutors are going to abuse the Plea Bargain, maybe they shouldn't be able to give them out without approval by some other unbiased third party. But the thing that got me was what the author stated in his final thoughts "Far more troubling are those cases where an innocent person enters into a guilty plea rather than risk a longer sentence after trial."

The article: http://harpers.org/archive/2011/09/hbc-90008255