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Plea bargaining is a significant part of the criminal justice system in the United States; the vast majority (roughly 90%) [29] of criminal cases in the United States are settled by plea bargain rather than by a jury trial. [30] Plea bargains are subject to the approval of the court, and different states and jurisdictions have different rules.
Plea bargains are subject to the approval of the court, and different States and jurisdictions have different rules. Game theory has been used to analyze the plea bargaining decision. [3] The constitutionality of plea bargaining was established by Brady v.
In cases where the "sole advantage a defendant would have received under the plea is a lesser sentence", the Supreme Court ruled that courts should "exercise discretion in determining whether the defendant should receive the term of imprisonment the government offered in the plea, the sentence he received at trial, or something in between". [24]
These factors are used to determine how much punishment the plea bargain will offer. For example, group relationships and the desire to "maintain" a healthy working relationship are important to group members. The workings of the courtroom group and the "going rate" for given crimes are not matters for public disclosure.
Trial penalties, they point out, impose such harsh sanctions on choosing to go to trial—with prosecutors sometimes threatening multi-decade prison sentences if a plea deal of only a few years is not accepted—that trial penalties amount to coercing defendants to plead guilty. This coercion, they argue, renders plea bargains unconstitutional.
In a plea bargain, a defendant makes a deal with the prosecution or court to plead guilty in exchange for a more lenient punishment, or for related charges against them to be dropped. A "blind plea" is a guilty plea entered with no plea agreement in place. [3] Plea bargains are particularly common in the United States. [4]
If fact bargaining is acceptable, then the entire moral and intellectual basis for the Sentencing Guidelines is rendered essentially meaningless." [2] Judges rarely overturn stipulations reached by fact bargaining. [3] In some cases, "creative" plea bargains are reached in which the defendant pleads guilty to a totally different lesser crime.
In August 2007, Galin Frye was arrested and charged with driving without a license for the third time, making it a felony in Missouri.The prosecutor in the case sent Frye's attorney two plea offers; one to recommend a three-year sentence with Frye serving only ten days in jail if he pleaded guilty to the felony, and the second to reduce the felony to a misdemeanor, and Frye to serve 90 days in ...