Plea Bargaining In Alaska Case Study

Review: In 1975, Attorney General, Avrum Gross, declared a prohibition on plea-bargaining in Alaska. Michael Rubinstein and Teresa J. White from National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice were assigned to study the impact of Gross’s decision. Their first task was looking at whether the policy had been carried out by the courts in Alaska, and second, was what the effects were on Alaska’s criminal justice system. This involved conducting 400 interviews of the surrounding judges in Alaska and collecting information from 3,586 case files. Overall their goal was to create a detailed description of the Alaska system during the “before and after” years. Following their studies, Rubinstein and Teresa were able to answer a few questions. Firstly, was plea-bargaining eliminated in Alaska? The answer is …show more content…
Defense counsels started to feel that defendants will not be able to pay for the time involved to go to trial, but the prosecutors feel even though they work harder at a trial they are not having to decide on a sentence in a plea bargain. The judges now have the burden to determine and announce all sentences to defendants. The ban on plea bargaining did not affect the sentences of violent crime charges, but it did drastically change the sentences of Felony 3 guilty outcomes. The defendants convicted of burglary, larceny and destruction of property found themselves receiving longer sentences. These crimes were receiving 53% longer sentences instead of being plea bargained to save the courts for the more violent crimes. In the crimes of fraud and embezzlement sentence terms increased 117%; in drug felonies it was 233%. The defendants who were convicted of minor charges were hit the heaviest with the ban. Many who would have normally received a short sentence or probation, now received a jail