November 27, 2018 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
The Cons of Offering Plea Bargain
The other line of argument against the
system of plea bargaining is that the accused stands disadvantaged as he will
be more likely drawn towards the lure of plea bargaining for the fear of being
convicted even if the evidence against him might not hold water.
The argument against plea bargaining
becomes even more convincing when there are more than one accused in a single
crime.
In such a scenario the game of prisoner’s
dilemma actually plays out where it is in the interest of all the parties to go
for plea bargaining and testify against the other accused.
The game becomes more intriguing if among
the accused there are some who had very little to role to play in the actual
serious crime and some who may actually be innocent.
In such a scenario the innocent ones or
relatively innocent ones stand at a disadvantage.
The reasoning is that it would be in the
interest of the principal perpetrator to accept plea bargaining and rat out the
details of crime spicing the narration of events with some fabrication in his
favor and against the others.
On the other hand there would be little or
no incentive for the innocent to choose the offer or implicate himself in the
perpetuated crime.
Much research has been done on this subject
of plea bargaining more specifically on how innocent accused would decide to
choose when offered this route by the prosecution.
It is interesting that just as in basic sciences
and medicine research is also carried out in theories of law by students of
premier law schools and universities.
In a paper titled “Fairness and Willingness
to Accept Plea Bargain Offers” published in the June 2017 issue of Journal of
Empirical Legal Studies it was summarized that the innocent accused were far
more likely to reject the offer of plea bargain than the guilty because of the
perceived unfairness being handed out to them.
Rejecting a plea bargaining offer leaves
them with the consequence in them of facing the complete trial.
Eventually they end up being handed out
even harsher punishments than they would have received had they accepted the
prosecution’s offer.
In the words of authors “this somewhat
counterintuitive ‘cost of innocence’, where the preferences of innocents lead them collectively to fare worse than
their guilty counterparts, is further increased by the practice of imposing
much harsher sentences at trial on defendants who contest the charges.
This ‘trial penalty’ seeks to facilitate
guilty pleas by guilty defendants […and ironically] disproportionately,
collectively, penalizes innocents, who reject on fairness grounds some offers
their guilty counterparts accept.”
In spite of the points made above against
the system of plea bargaining United States criminal justice heavily relies on
it probably in consideration of the monetary this system buys.
We do always have to return to the United
States as a reference point for any subject that we deal with.
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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