Plea Bargain Task Force Report

Because plea bargaining has become the primary means of resolving criminal cases, a critical periodic examination of the system is necessary to understand best practices and areas requiring reform. Though specific policies may vary across jurisdictions, the advantages and disadvantages are common to all. Plea bargaining presents an efficient way to dispose of cases, preserving resources for those cases that do proceed to trial and providing defendants a route to avoid the most severe aspects of the criminal justice system. However, plea bargaining can be incredibly coercive. Mandatory sentencing laws, collateral consequences, and prosecutors’ unequal discretion and access to information may induce even innocent defendants to surrender their trial rights. Because so few defendants actually proceed to trial, police and government misconduct often goes unchecked, and the voice of the community is almost entirely lost. The practice exacerbates racial inequality, as evidenced by significant disparities in prosecutors’ charging decisions. With these issues in mind, the Plea Bargain Task Force crafted a set of fourteen major principles to guide the reform of plea practices. Each principle is accompanied by specific observations and recommendations as to how it can be implemented. For example, jurisdictions may consider eliminating mandatory minimums, limiting the trial penalty by statute, ensuring a more robust plea colloquy, or adopting ethical rules. The report also calls for recognition that innocent defendants sometimes plead guilty in the current system. Prosecutors and defense attorneys alike can benefit from these practices.

“There are many purported benefits of plea bargaining in the current criminal justice system. . . . [T]oo often these benefits have become the driving force of criminal adjudication at the cost of more fundamental values. . . . [E]fficiency and finality trump truth-seeking. Furthermore, many benefits of plea bargaining are . . . a means to mitigate the excessive harshness of the modern American criminal system. In this sense, plea bargaining is not so much providing a benefit as it is a safety valve for quotidian injustice.” p. 6