Critical Analysis of The Plea Jeremy Reid Houston Community College Abstract The paper is a critical analysis of the video “The Plea” by Frontline that was aired on 06/17/2004. The criminal justice system uses plea bargains that give a defendant the option to take a lesser charge or to challenge the charge with the risk of a high penalty if found guilty. Not all people how take a plea bargain are guilty. The video tries to show the failure of the criminal justice system. The author uses…
The Plea Frontline’s feature The Plea focuses on the incredibly popular and sometimes overlooked aspect of court, the plea bargain. Author Douglas Guidorizzi quotes Black’s Law Dictionary when providing the best definition of a plea bargain but a summary of that definition will suffice. The plea bargain, in short, is an agreement made between the defense and the prosecutor in a criminal case (if approved by the court) where the defendant usually pleads guilty to a lesser offense or to only some…
The ethics of plea negotiations raise the fundamental questions: “Are state and federal plea-bargaining systems fair? Does the ‘negotiation process,’ where the defense wields minimal bargaining power, provide for a system to achieve reliable results?” (Yaroshefsky, 2008, p. 1). Subscribers to dentonlogical perspectives consider plea negotiations unethical for several reasons. Plea negotiations are a violation of the due process rights of the defendant and they reduce their self-respect, whether…
insanity plea is a defense in the court of law put in place for people who suffer from mental illness and commit crimes. Under this defense, the mentally ill are not entirely held responsible for their actions given the terms that they were not in the correct state of mind when the crime took place. The person would admit to committing the crime, but then say they are not guilty by reason of insanity (Francone). This plea has been used in my cases throughout history. The presence of this…
reforming plea negotiations. Deidre M. Bowen examined a reformed system of plea bargaining in King County, Washington, which included a structured process for handling cases (Walker, 2015). there were some clear rules on plea negotiations and higher levels of supervision for attorneys. This new process uses a horizontal approach to prosecution, in which cases are initially handled by the Charging Unit and then passed to the Early Plea Unit. Cases that are not settled through a guilty plea are…
The Plea Brittany Johnson Houston Community CollegeAbstract My reflection will be on individuals having to take the plea deal when being convicted. Some questions I will bring into this research topic would be; Why are individuals taking the plea deal so freely? Why would lawyers not want to take the case to trial? Who are the type of individuals having to go through this? Is jail overcrowding helping this situation at hand? I will look into all of these things by watching the Frontline…
its benefits. Criminals lives are determined if they chose to plead guilty and have Brady rights for the crimes that they've committed. Plea bargaining is when you plead guilty to a crime that you’ve committed. The defendant is always informed of what rights they are waiving. The judge has to determine if the defendant voluntarily plead guilty. The cons of plea bargaining are that you won’t get as many rights as you would if you didn’t plead guilty. You put yourself at more risk…
reduce the severity of the charges, etc. In order for the plea to be valid the defendant has to plea guilty in open court before a judge. “About 95 percent of all criminal convictions are the result of guilty pleas rather than trials, so prosecutors offer bargains in nearly every case”("Plea Bargain"). A plea bargain is a simple process, and there are many different reasons for people to take it. The prosecutor often offers the defendant a plea bargain, from that point, Judge Peter Messitte…
Recently, a vast amount of research by criminologists focused on the disparate treatment of African Americans in terms of a plea bargain. As Savitsky argues, that plea bargain is one of the most crucial variables in the high level of racial stratification in prisons that accounts for 95 percent of criminal dispositions. Black's dilemma whether to accept a plea deal or proceed to trial given their general lack of confidence in the Criminal Justice System, renders them at a disadvantage that…
free man just because he was “sleepwalking,” not too safe right? The previous question presents one of the many flaws in the United States' legal system: the misuse of the plea for insanity. First, we need to understand that the plea for insanity does not give a criminal a “get out of jail free” card. Many of the cases where the plea for insanity is used the criminal is forced to serve their time that would have been spent in jail in a mental institution instead. But a mental institution is not…