November 26, 2018 Monday
Bedtime Story
Plea Bargain
The confession of any accused in a criminal
case is not treated as an evidence of guilt.
It is treated merely as additional evidence
along with the others and it would still be necessary to build up evidences to
prove ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ that the crime was indeed committed by the
accused.
The trial would continue as usual unless he
insists on plea bargaining.
In plea bargaining the devil makes a deal
with the prosecutor in a criminal case.
The rules of this game is that the accused
agrees to plead guilty to a lesser charge or to one of the many criminal
offenses lodged against him for a more reduced or lenient sentencing.
The benefit comes to both the parties in
that on one hand it saves the prosecution a lengthy trial and on the other hand
the accused is spared from conviction of a more serious criminal offense and
therefore a harsher punishment or sentencing.
It might even extricate the accused from a
custodial sentence or imprisonment depending upon the nature of crime and
offenses lodged against him.
Strangely enough the concept of plea
bargaining was introduced into the Criminal Procedure Code of Indian criminal
justice system as late as in 2006.
It took place through an amendment of the
code of Criminal Procedure by The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2005 by
introducing a new Chapter XXI(A) in the code.
In contrast to India or perhaps even many
other countries in the United States plea bargaining occupies a prominent
position in the conduct of criminal trials with as many as 90% of criminal
cases being settled by plea bargaining rather than the entire lengthy jury
trial continuing on to its logical completion.
The high figure of 90% undoubtedly is a
reflection of fear of getting convicted in the U.S. criminal justice system in
contrast to say the state of Maharashtra.
In a state such as Maharashtra with such
low conviction rate as the data showed the criminal or the accused might as
well take his chances with the system where the odds of acquittal are very
high; in such a scenario only a fool or a very poor person with no resources to
exploit the system would go for plea bargaining.
In many countries plea bargaining is
forbidden because of theoretical studies and outcomes of research based on the
problem of prisoner’s dilemma, a well known technique in game theory.
Theoretical studies and reasoning and
analysis of game theoretic approach to plea bargaining has convinced many that
it is open to coercive manipulation and exploitation by the prosecutors and by
the accused.
There is one line of argument that in
systems that have plea bargaining the prosecutors would be encouraged to go overboard
heaping on the accused with far more criminal charges than actually deserving
in the hope that the fear of conviction would drive him to accede to plea
bargaining.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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