The Tyranny of the Trial Penalty: The Consensus that Coercive Plea Practices Must End

In 2019, the Federal Sentencing Reporter published a special double issue on plea bargaining. The pieces contained in the double issue covered a wide number of topics, including innocence, the psychology of plea bargaining, sentencing data and plea bargaining, and the trial penalty. This introductory piece from the organizers of the collection contains a summary of the various pieces contained in the double issue and serves as a resource for those interested in the collection as a whole.

“The availability of a mandatory minimum sentence, combined with the unfettered discretion of prosecutors to control the charging process, creates an insuperable weapon that so burdens the exercise of the rights afforded to an accused person as to render them a nullity.” p. 217