Plea Bargaining In Criminal Justice

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Plea Bargaining is considered to be a controversial topic in the criminal justice system as “it is an agreement between a defendant and a prosecutor, in which the defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest (nolo contendere) in exchange for an agreement by the prosecutor to drop one or more charges, reduce a charge to a less serious offense, or recommend to the judge a specific sentence acceptable to the defense” (Berman). In my opinion, I do believe plea bargaining to be an necessary evil in our criminal justice system because without it, our courts would be overwhelmed with cases and our jails that are already filled with prisoners would be overloaded with even more prisoners. Despite these problems that would happen to the criminal justice …show more content…
In the article called The Case of the Jena Six: Black High School Students Charged with Attempted Murder for Schoolyard Fight After Nooses Are Hung from Tree by Amy Goodman, the six black kids “face up to 100 years in prison without parole” (Goodman). In another article called Jena Six case wrapped up with plea bargains written by NBC News, it was stated that thanks to plea bargaining, their charges of attempted murder and conspiracy was reduced to “misdemeanor simple battery”. Their punishment for beating up the white student is “seven days unsupervised probation and fined $500.”(News). Even though the Jena Six were children and received a very light sentence for brutally beating up a white student at their school, it does not excuse the fact that they should receive such a light sentence for a brutal crime but should at least have a mandatory sentence, so those six kids can at least receive some punishment for their