[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/right-to-jury-trial-penalty
/621074/
The Bill of Rights exists to protect individuals. It protects the right
to free speech, the right to due process, the right to counsel, and the
right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, just to name a few.
If a government official tries to deprive an individual of one of those
constitutional rights, then the courts are supposed to intervene.
But that’s not what happens when it comes to one of the most important
rights for criminal defendants—the right to a jury trial. Instead of
protecting defendants’ right to have their guilt or innocence decided
by their peers, judges routinely punish defendants for exercising that
right. Specifically, judges regularly impose longer sentences on those
defendants who insist on going to trial than on those defendants who
plead guilty. A [2]2018 report shows that, on average, defendants who
insist on a trial receive sentences three times longer than those of
defendants who plead guilty. This practice is so common that it even
has a name: the “trial penalty.”
The executive branch of government has followed the courts’ lead; many
prosecutors pressure defendants to bargain away their right to a jury.
They will offer defendants concessions—such as dropping some criminal
charges or recommending leniency at sentencing—in return for a guilty
plea. Plea bargains dominate the system. Only 3 percent of convictions
are the result of a trial—the rest come from guilty pleas. As the
Supreme Court [3]put it, “Criminal justice today is for the most part a
system of pleas, not a system of trials.”
IFRAME: [4]1-0-38;36328;
