Pros And Cons Of Plea Bargaining

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Plea Bargains Plea bargains are a necessary evil in some cases. Whether pleas are used to reduce over crowded court dockets, a lack of overwhelming evidence to get a conviction, or used to simply avoid a lengthy trial, there four forms of plea bargains. Each one holds a different value in the criminal justice system and are used for different reasons. When a defendant pleads guilty to a criminal charge with an expectation of receiving some type of benefit from the state that is called a plea bargain, this type of plea is used most often. In some cases, a prosecutor will deliberately over charge a defendant in order to have them plead to a lesser charge, making it look as if they are receiving a break, is known as charge bargaining. A defendant can be over charged in another way as well. In count bargaining, a defendant will plead guilty to some of the charges against him or her, but the prosecutor has deliberately over charged the defendant in the first place, in order to dismiss some of charges later on. The final form is a sentence bargain and this is where a defendant enters a guilty plea in order to receive a reduced sentence (Neubauer & Fradella, 2011). Looking at the “The Plea Bargain Scenario” assigned, I would reject the plea agreement for many reasons.…show more content…
As a judge, I would look at all of the evidence prior to the night of the accident and Lindsey’s subsequent death from her injuries. I would agree to allow Barbara to plead to the gross vehicular manslaughter charge, but would not allow the reduced one year prison sentence. In Ohio, aggravated vehicular homicide, Ohio Revised Code (ORC) 2903.06, has a reckless section of the statute is a third degree felony which rises to a second degree felony if the driver is under suspension at the time of the offense (Rowland, 2015). Barbara’s license was suspended at the time of the crash from a previous failure to appear charge stemming from another OVI

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