Ethics of Plea Bargains
<p>Defendants are punished for exercising their right to trial - the State advocates for the harshest possible punishment unless the defendant enters into a plea bargain which requires the defendant to, under oath, waive their constitutional right(s).  Further, the trial adds several months of delay to the adjudication of her case.  So, the punishment is further multiplied.</p>

<p>Finally, how is it ethical for the State to conspire with a defendant to create and perpetuate a lie?  Plea bargains are lies - both the defendant and the prosecution know that the plea is something other than the truth yet they conspire to a falsehood and then go before a Judge swear that falsehood is truth under oath.</p>

<p>Seems shoddy.</p>

<p>In short: Plea bargain benefit society as a whole.</p>

<p>If a defendant exercises his/her constitutional right to a jury trial, the trial takes up a lot of time and preparation. A jury trial costs a significant amount of time and money. Additionally, judges have to set aside court time for the trial, when instead they could be doing other things. In most states where there are elected judges, judges want to have a large number of criminal convictions, ie. Plea deals so they can say they are tough on crime. In states with appointed judges, judges will get promoted based on their number of finished cases in a year or their efficiency.</p>

<p>For prosecutors, they favor plea agreements because a plea agreement removes any chance the defendant will have his/her conviction overturned. When one agrees to a plea one waives any and all right to appeal one's conviction; otherwise, all defendants are guaranteed at least one appeal, which are once again expensive. Additionally, defendants can petition for habeas corpus. When they plead guilty the government won't have to defend against these petitions.</p>

<p>Defendants win because they get a lower sentence.</p>

<p>In the end pleas are ethical because they help society as a whole making the system more efficient. The criminals who plead serve their time and cannot get their convictions overturned.</p>

<p>Ideally, the criminal justice system should:</p>

<ul>
<li>provide justice (fair and impartial)</li>
<li>provide consistency (similar facts should receive similar sentences)</li>
<li>be efficient (in time and money)</li>
<li>provide fitting punishment and/or restitution (society needs its vengeance tempered by mercy)</li>
<li>act as a deterrent (society needs protection)</li>
</ul>

<p>Some of these aims are in direct conflict; for example, justice is expensive in both time and money.</p>

<p>As an officer of the court a DA will not bring a case to trial unless they have a genuine belief in the accused's guilt <em>and</em> a reasonable expectation of proving it. </p>

<p>Plea bargains benefit society be reducing the cost of justice, both in the courts and in corrections (shorter or no custodial sentences). They benefit the guilty by reducing their costs and punishment. They do not impact on the innocent because they can choose to go to trial.</p>

<p><strong>Edit re comment</strong></p>

<p>The OP commented:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Well thought out, but, as you know nobody can define what justice is (e.g. Socrates, Plato). The courts provide no consistency nor are they efficient (or ever on time). They never provide fitting punishment. However, they do act as a deterrent, I'll agree to that. That said, the scope of this question regards plea bargains. Why is someone punished for choosing to not give up his constitution right to trial. If you ask how they are punished the answer is that a harsher penalty is advocated for and approved of by the State and the case remains open for additional months or even years.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>As comments are transient, I thought it worth addressing some of the issues this raises in an edit.</p>

<p>I will just ignore the fact that my answer deals with an "ideal" justice system while the comment criticises the actual justice system. Any real system will fail to achieve the ideal because it requires fallible people and limited resources to implement a real system. Notwithstanding, the ideal system proposed has inherently conflicting objectives and any realisation <em>of necessity</em> requires a compromise between them.</p>

<p>"nobody can define what justice is" - not true <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/justice" rel="nofollow">here</a> is dictionary.com's definition; other dictionaries provide consistent definitions. In the specific instance of a criminal trial, justice involves being treated equally and impartially and being allowed to know the case against you and mount a defence. Plea bargaining does not in any way infringe this.</p>

<p>"The courts provide no consistency" and "They never provide fitting punishment" - you <em>really</em> need to read some judgements before making a claim like this. When a judge sentences someone, except for very minor offences (which are not the type of things that attract plea bargains anyway), they <em>must</em> write down their reasons for the sentence given. This provides both consistency as these reasons will refer to the punishments in other cases and "fitting punishments" as, if the reasons given do not support the sentence then both the defence and the prosecution have a right to appeal it. Read the judgements; don't rely on media hyperbole. A judgement exists to set out the judge's reasoning; a media report exists to sell advertising and cater to the prejudices of their audience.</p>

<p>"nor are they efficient (or ever on time)" - Second point first; my experience is that a judge sets the date and time allocation for a trial based on what the prosecution and the defence agree is achievable. In general, they are not too bad at this. Delays happen, but they happen in the construction industry, the logistics industry and the manufacturing industry as well.</p>

<p>"Efficient" means achieving the objectives at the lowest possible cost and is a question of management rather than justice. It is inefficient to have so few courts and judges that the wait for a trial date is "too long" (whatever you decide that means). Equally, it is inefficient to have so many that some are standing idle for large periods of time. Most real justice systems fail on the side of having too few resources but ultimately that is a political decision, not a legal one. Suffice to say I will refer you to the concept of the Time-Cost-Quality triangle of management - changing one of the sides of that triangle <em>always</em> has an impact for good or ill on the others. </p>

<p>"they do act as a deterrent" - I'm on a roll here because I'm going to disagree with you on this too. Many studies have shown that the severity of a sentence has an infinitesimal impact on a perpetrator's decision to commit a crime. Of far more significance is the perception the perpetrator has on their chance of being caught irrespective of the likely sentence; efficient policing is more important than the sanction.</p>

<p>You say in your question "Defendants are punished for exercising their right to trial", however, this could be stated equivalently as "Defendants are rewarded for waiving their right to trial". By giving up their right they receive compensation but are under no compulsion to do so. If it is a good deal they will take it, if its a bad deal they will reject it; something for something is not unethical. </p>

<p>Other answers appear to assume a utilitarian ethics and argue that plea bargains are beneficial to society (cost, efficiency, etc.) and therefore ethical. However, they fail to address what I feel is the real concern here: the deontological position that it is unethical to believe one thing (the defendant is guilty of murder) but do another (punish the defendant as though the defendant is guilty of manslaughter).</p>

<p>One way out of this particular problem might be to rethink what a plea bargain really is. Instead of the plea bargain being understood as implying something about the crime, we can instead see a plea bargain as a modification of the punishment. In this way of thinking, acceptance of a plea bargain would be more similar to a confession of guilt to the true crime than to some lesser crime, and the reduced sentence simply leniency on the part of the prosecutor and judge.</p>

<p>If the leniency aspect is still troubling, you might even consider that typical sentencing guidelines assume that the case will go to trial and consist of two parts: one part related to the actual crime, and one part related to the "meta-crime" of failing to confess to a crime of which you knew you were guilty. This introduces some difficulty for punishments that seem incommensurate - like jail vs. death - but you might be able to escape from that difficulty by applying some utility function to the punishments which normalize them to some sort of standard measure (e.g., "death" is really just like being in prison until you die of natural causes, or that plus some extra, etc.)</p>

<p>I disagree with multiple premises of this question.</p>

Faulty premise #1

<blockquote>
  <p>Defendants are punished for exercising their right to trial</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The rest of that sentence fails to logically support this assertion.</p>

Faulty premise #2

<blockquote>
  <p>Further, the trial adds several months of delay to the adjudication of her case. So, the punishment is further multiplied.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The trial doesn't <strong>add</strong> delay. The plea bargain <strong>reduces</strong> the time it would take to go to trial.</p>

Faulty premise #3

<blockquote>
  <p>Plea bargains are lies</p>
</blockquote>

<p>All plea bargains are not a lie.</p>

plea