Testimony on Consideration of a Bill to Ban All Plea-Bargaining

Testimony Summary
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Testimony Summary
I must express my honor and gratitude for the chance to express my opinions on this great committee. I have had the privilege to work in the justice system, both at the federal and state level, and I have acquired adequate expertise and experiences relating to the practice of law. The subject in question, plea bargaining, is of particular interest to me, having participated in a considerable number of plea bargains while also researching some cases for consideration for the same. Although plea bargaining in the justice system has been attacked and upheld in almost equal measure, the benefits of maintaining plea bargaining outweigh its demerits. Through this testimonial, I am pleading with the distinguished members of the committee to reconsider the bill to do away with plea bargaining as an option in the justice system. The benefits of having plea bargaining cut across all participating parties and stakeholders in a case, including the court, and the ban will most certainly have casualty of immense magnitude.
Public attorneys are the most apparent casualties of the ban on plea bargaining. Ordinarily, public attorneys are responsible for representing members of the public who are unable or unwilling to have a private defendant represent them. This implies that public attorneys will have huge caseloads that would take them a lot of time to process and litigate. As informed by Vogel (2019), when plea bargaining is banned, the trial rate soars. Sometimes the time pressure and the huge caseload overburden the defense attorneys, inhibiting their efficiency. Plea bargaining allows the defense attorneys, in this case, the public attorneys, to offset some cases from proceeding to full litigation, thus increasing their efficiency. The ban on plea bargaining would undoubtedly limit the efficiency of public attorneys.
The defense in its entirety will also be impacted by the ban on plea bargaining. The costs incurred by the defendant throughout the litigation process can be humongous. In the worst case scenario, the case might end up with a guilty verdict. The decision to bar the defendant from invoking a plea bargain inhibits them from lessening the burden of litigation. In most cases, plea bargaining would end up with a punishment of less severity to the defendant as opposed to proceeding to trial and sentencing (Turner, 2017). The defendant is also denied the anonymity that is not accorded with trials, where they will be required to testify before a court of law. The ban on plea bargaining is a deprivation of the basic rights of the defendant to a fair court process that would include the process.
Other parties that would be affected by the ban include the court, judges, prosecutors, and even the victims. The courts use plea bargains to save time and resources that would be used in the litigation of more complex and rather heinous offenses. Conklin (2020) notes that plea bargaining gives prosecutors the chance to spend resources where it would promote justice the most. Recurring and petty offenses can be dealt with using plea bargaining. Plea bargains relieve the judges of the burden of having to decide o...