Lawyers, plea bargaining question

[lendaddy]

When did the US court system start allowing plea bargaining? Or was it always allowed?

[Dantilla]

I don't know, but is there a reason lendaddy needs to know about plea bargains?

Next week, will you be asking about the best way to flee the country?

[lendaddy]

No Got into a discussion with my grandfather and he says it didn't exist until the 60's - 70's and I find that hard to believe.

[KFC911]

I don't know the exact time frame, but you grandfather is correct in that it's indeed a fairly recent 'twist' to our legal system.

[MRM]

The practice pre-dates the US. It may have become more popular in the 50s and 60s when society became more mobile and crime became more prevelent, but it's been around longer than our country.

[KFC911]

Yes, I didn't mean to imply that it was 'brand new', but that it wasn't until fairly recently that it became the 'de facto' standard for moving cases through the legal system (I think I read that 95% of cases are now plea bargained).

[lendaddy]

Right, I know that globally it traces back throughout history. My question I guess, is was it ever outlawed here in the States? Was there ever a time when a prosecutor could NOT allow a plea for lesser punishment? If so, when was it lifted?

[MRM]

No. Plea bargaining has always been an essential part of the common law based legal system. I can't speak for civil law countries like France or Louisiana. It is a constitutional right to plead guilty to charges. The prosecutor under the division of powers (prosecution is part of the executive branch) gets to select the approprite charges. The legislative and judicial branches can't interfere with the charging decision, but the legislature can set minimum or maximum sentences and the judge has to approve the plea bargain and can reject the plea bargain if the judge thinks the deal isn't fair - either too harsh or too lenient. But it has always been part of the system.

Each prosecutor's office has a set of guidelines that they follow for charging and negotiating pleas. Some offices might have a policy saying that they won't plea bargain on certain charges, but that's just a local policy.

Probably at least 95% of all cases are plea bargained today. I'd guess it is far higher. But that's not necessarily a perjorative. Most people are guilty of what they are charged with, and most of the work involves simply figuring out the appropriate sentence for the crime. Remember, most crime is not a violent felony. Most charges are for relatively petty offenses and get disposed of fairly quickly. Most of the rest of the cases the defendant is guilty of something, but not exactly what was charged. The prosecutor adjusts the charges accordingly and the judge issues an appropriate sentence for that jurisdiction. Serious and violent crimes are far more likely to go to trial, simply because prosecutors are less willing to plea bargain them and the state is willing to put more resources into them. Consequently the defendant is more willing to take his chances at trial because the risk of getting a harsher sentence after trial is minimal when the offer is to plead guilty and do the max or take your chances at trial and do the max if convicted.

In the old days there was relatively less crime and fewer civil rights so it was easy to try cases quickly and cheaply so there was probably less plea bargaining. But there has always been plea bargaining and the vast majority of convictions have always been obtained through guilty pleas.

[KFC911]

Originally posted by MRM
No. Plea bargaining has always been an essential part of the common law based legal system....

Probably at least 95% of all cases are plea bargained today....

In the old days there was relatively less crime and fewer civil rights so it was easy to try cases quickly and cheaply so there was probably less plea bargaining. But there has always been plea bargaining and the vast majority of convictions have always been obtained through guilty pleas.

I'm just curious as to what say a "ballpark" percentage would have been in say 1950 (or any other period really), for plea bargains?

[nota]

blame the lazy lawyers working as prostituting state att
and the high and mighty judges act like their time [in hours]
in court is worth years of the common mans life
add in the stupid manditory minimum sentences and you have killed the right to a fair trial let alone a speedy one
and who gets screwed the worst the poor man who gets a false charge
as the guilty know the plea is their best hope
but the guy who didnot do it is the one between a rock and a hard place
his options are few, as the risk of a trial is a much longer time to serve but few not guilty, want a deal even a no time probation deal and record that comes with it

and capital crimes are the real NO HOPE MESS for the falsely charged as they are far more likely to face the death sentence
then a real crook who will plea out QUICKLY and avoid the death risk
THATS ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS, I DONOT WANT THE STATE TO KILL PEOPLE [they tend to kill the WRONG PEOPLE far too often]
THE BAD GUYS PLEA OR RAT and joe lunchbucket is far more likely to die even if not guilty or semi guilty [ie should be charged will a lessor crime] then the criminal who knows the system

[MRM]

Wow. That is the second most ignorant post I have ever read. The first is the similarly incoherent ranting over on Tab's "Fatone" post.

The DOJ keeps data on guilty pleas, but I don't know where to find it. I'm sure it's on the web somewhere. The percentages vary by state, but I'm sure the percentages are well over 90%, depending on how you classify crimes, charges and dispositions. To make sense of them you would have to know what the charge was for in the first place.

In my experience most petty offenses, like traffic tickets, go to trial or are dismissed. They require only a trial to a judge, so the state can cycle as many of them in a day as is needed. That's why traffic court is such a nightmare. Misdemeanors like simple assault, shoplifting, criminal damage to property, and drunk driving are almost all either plead guilty to or dismissed. Drug crimes are almost all plead guilty to or dismissed because there will be a preliminary hearing that is sort of a mini trial that determines the admissibility of the drugs. Once the admissibility of the drugs is determined there is nothing to fight over, either you had the drugs or you didn't. The more serious crimes like rape and murder almost always go to trial, at least where I practice. So I suppose there's kind of a reverse bell curve of plea bargaining.

One last thought, just because someone pleads guilty doesn't mean there has been a plea bargain. It is a constitutional right to plead guilty. Lots of times people just don't want to fight the inevitable so they do something called "straight plead" where they enter a guilty plea without any promise from the judge or prosecutor. That's called throwing yourself on the mercy of the court. Sometimes it's rewarded, sometimes not. But with sentencing guidelines, there's often nothing to negotiate, a guilty verdict is the same as a guilty plea.

[LeeH]

http://www.truthinjustice.org/bargaining.htm
"The plea bargain was a prosecutorial tool used only episodically before the 19th century. ''In America,'' Fisher says, ''it can be traced almost to the very emergence of public prosecution -- and public prosecution, although not exclusive to the U.S., developed earlier and more broadly here than most places.'' But because judges, not prosecutors, controlled most sentencing, plea bargaining was limited to those rare cases in which prosecutors could unilaterally dictate a defendant's sentence. ''Not until the crush of civil litigation brought on by the explosion of personal-injury cases in the industrial era did judges begin to appreciate the workload relief plea bargaining promised.'' In other words, plea bargaining is arguably another outgrowth of late-19th-century industrialization. "

[lendaddy]

Thanks Lee, great info!

[72doug2,2S]

-Nota and Tabs, drunk posting again. Isn't that a country song?

[LakeCleElum]

Originally posted by lendaddy
When did the US court system start allowing plea bargaining? Or was it always allowed?

Was alive and well when I started hanging around courtrooms in 1975!!!!!!

[Dottore]

The judicial system would come to a grinding halt without plea bargaining.

[nota]

funny sad how the neo-conned hate goverment
but love cops, courts, and prisons
and want to stuff them full of the underclass
and hate the higher counts [so call liberal judges]
but will give the real criminals if rich a free pass

our system is broken now
plea bargains are no real bargains
esp to the falsely charged
in states with a so call grand jury system
[grand jurys ONLY hear the state case with NO input from the
accused] so no pilminary hearing or chace to dispute false charges before the trial

you maynot like my writing style
but few can dispute my facts!!!!!
stick to the point this is not a english class
spelling and grammar donot count
ideas do matter
but if you cannot dispute the facts
the only way out is harp about grammar BS
a common neo-conned trick
donot address the point spin BS about the person
and that SUCKS