The courts have used plea bargains for years in order to help keep the clogged judicial system working as smoothly as possible. While plea bargains are known to be helpful to the court, they also go against our rights by violating a state statue. A plea bargain is an agreement to plead guilty to a lesser charge with less-severe punishments. A law professor at Emory University said, "In states, at least nine of ten cases in felonies plead guilty; for misdemeanors 99%-plus plead guilty. About the same number in federal systems, 91% of felonies" (http://els41.law.emory.edu/sites/crimpro/notes/ch17notes.html). The fact that so many cases are being resolved through plea bargains shows how heavily the court system relies on plea bargains. Many times criminals, such as abusive fathers, like in the story "My Papa's Waltz" get off with just a fine through plea bargains, when they deserve so much more. If the majority of all cases are resolved by people pleading guilty in order to receive a plea bargain, then the majority of our country's criminals have not received full justice for the crime they have committed. .
Plea bargains are used to save the court resources and to keep the courts" efficiency level high. A defense attorney from the Bronx of New York says, "there are simply too few judges and courtrooms to handle the flow of cases. Obviously, more resources are needed. When those resources are not forthcoming, there is a tendency to look for a quick fix" (http://www.bronxda.net/fighting_crime/plea_bargaining.html).
A good analogy to describing the quick fix used in the book Judges and Sentencing is that "Plea agreements operate like a pressure valve that allows a criminal justice system to function relatively efficiently and justly" (Manaugh 34). Prosecutors predicted in the book Judges and Sentencing that without plea-bargains, "If every case went to trial, it would take years and years to decrease the backlog" (Manaugh 34).
