Overcharging In The Criminal Justice System

Bedsheeting in the criminal justice system is a tactic used by law enforcement officials, where they charge an accused person of every possible crime the individual may have committed during a single incident (Karmen, 2016). Overcharging in the criminal justice system is a practice used by prosecutors that involves them adding additional charges they cannot prove a defendant to be guilty of. Both tactics are used to put prosecutors in a better position to obtain a plea bargain from defendants and to help move a large volume of cases through the system (Karmen, 2016).

When it comes to my opinion, I feel as though these practices are not appropriate but they are needed. To me bedsheeting and overcharging are not appropriate because generally there is no evidence to prove the defendant committed the additional offenses charged against them (Graham, 2014). In addition, it forces innocent defendants to plead guilty to a lesser offense they truly did not commit, just to avoid the maximum sentence for the initial crime they were charged with and also did not commit (Graham, 2014). Furthermore, by overcharging and due to bail being set so high for certain defendants, it is more difficult for the families of those who are incarcerated to bail out their loved ones. Therefore, when a defendant must remain in custody …show more content…
What was once an adversarial adjudicative process controlled by judges and juries has been reduced to an administrative mechanism dominated by prosecutors through the exercise of unbridled discretion. Prosecutors and law enforcement officials are not supposed to use their power to rack up guilty pleas or convictions, because they are not advocates for one side in an adversarial process; they are public officials charged with pursuing justice (Graham,