Criminal justice process overview and key stages

Criminal Law

Is plea bargaining a good or bad practice in American criminal justice?

It is impossible to state that plea bargaining is an unequivocally good or unequivocally bad practice when placed in the broader context of the American criminal justice system. Plea bargaining certainly has its merits, and helps keep an already overwhelmed system from becoming completely unworkable. However, plea bargaining can make victims feel as if they have been deprived of both procedural and substantive justice, leading to a perception that the American criminal justice system is soft on crime and cares more about defendants than about victims.

There is no question that modern criminal courts are forced to contend with a complex and busy caseload. Furthermore, they have to walk a difficult line, one the one hand controlling crime and protecting society, while, on the other hand, being protective of individual rights. Most of the people who are intimately involved in the criminal justice system have a good idea of the value of a particular crime. In other words, they know the approximate sentence that a defendant with particular characteristics would receive for committing a specific crime. This enables those actors to make pre-trial determinations of the appropriate sentence for a particular defendant. Of course, different actors play different roles in these determinations. Clearly, it is the role of the defense attorney to try to obtain a below-average sentence for his client, while a prosecutor might seek an above-average sentence. However, because all of the daily actors in the criminal justice system are so well-versed in crime and punishment, plea bargains usually result in the appropriate sentence for the offender. In this way, plea bargains are very efficient and are a boon to a struggling court system. However, there are weaknesses in a criminal justice system whose convictions are largely the result of plea bargains; though a trial is a defendant's absolute constitutional right, the push to plea bargain may make it seem as if defendant's are penalized for seeking that right, since they are charged with the highest level of crime applicable if they are brought to trial.

2. Is preventative pretrial detention a just practice?

In a country that prides itself on the notion that all people are innocent until proven guilty, and that all people have an absolute Due Process right to a fair and complete trial, the idea of pretrial detention should shock the conscience of legal observers. The Constitution only recognizes one function for bail, and that is to secure people who are flight risks while they await trial. Moreover, the Constitution does not even contemplate a scenario in which a defendant would be denied a meaningful opportunity to make bail. However, the reality is that courts frequently set bail so high that defendants have no possibility of making bail, which results in de facto pretrial detention for those defendants. In fact, with the Bail Reform Act of 1966 and the Bail Reform Act of 1984, Congress recognized that bail was being used to ensure pretrial detention of certain defendants and took steps to validate that purpose. However, no amount of legislation can change the fact that the Founding Fathers envisioned bail merely as a means to secure a defendant's presence at trial, and not to detain a defendant prior to conviction.

It must be noted that pre- trial detainees face the same type of restrictions on personal liberty that convicted defendants face. They are restricted in movement, access to friends and family, opportunities to discuss their case with counsel, and opportunities to investigate on behalf of their defenses. Furthermore, pre-trial detainees present a different image to fact finders than those defendants who are released on bail before their hearings; physically, pre-trial detainees already look like convicts, who may send a subconscious message to the judge or the jury that is deciding a defendant's case. As a result, one can only conclude that pre-trial detention is unwarranted unless a defendant represents such a real and substantial risk of flight that only pre-trial detention will secure his or her presence at trial.

3. Given what you know about the operations of the criminal courts, is it accurate to call the criminal justice process an "open system"? Why?

Yes, it is accurate to call the criminal justice process an open system. Criminal defendants have access to counsel, either private counsel or court-appointed counsel if a defendant is indigent, for every crucial part in the criminal justice process. In addition, the public has access to the criminal justice process; courtrooms are open, so that the public can witness justice as it is being dispensed. Furthermore, because juries are derived from the ranks of the average citizenry, the actual fact finders in the criminal justice system come from the public. In these ways, the criminal justice system is an open system. However, it is also true that the criminal justice process is a closed process. Defendant's communications with their attorneys are privileged, so that the public may never know what a defendant has actually done. Moreover, a defendant who enters into a plea agreement may not be admitting full culpability for the offense he actually committed, put is only required to admit guilt for what the crime with which he is actually charged. In that way, the criminal justice process is closed. Therefore, one would have to conclude that while it is accurate to call the criminal justice process an open system, one would have to always remember that it is not an entirely open system.

First, the process is an open one for criminal defendants. In many criminal justice systems, defendants have little meaningful access to counsel, which means that they may make inculpatory statements that impact the disposition of their case long before they even have a true understanding of what charges they face. The American criminal justice system does not work that way. Not only do criminal defendants have a right to an attorney from the moment of arrest, but they are informed of that right when arrested. Therefore, defendants always have the opportunity to gain knowledge about the charges that they face.

Furthermore, the public can witness different aspects of the criminal justice process. While arrests are not always publicized, they are a part of the public record. Courtrooms are open, which means that anyone can watch any courtroom stage of an adult criminal proceeding, from the preliminary hearing to post-conviction sentencing procedures. In fact, the criminal justice process if very open to the American public, since its juries are drawn from members of the public. In fact, the constitutional right to a jury trial, as well as the rights to an attorney and to confront the witnesses against oneself help ensure that the American criminal justice process is an open one.