[49] As the.
American legal profession grew, and more trials involved lawyers, the length of the jury trial also increased.[50] Correspondingly,.
guilty plea rates increased.[51] Therefore, plea bargaining should be viewed as a natural outgrowth of a progressively adversarial.
criminal justice system.
However, despite its prevalence, many criticized the displacement of jury trials with plea bargaining as the primary method of.
criminal case disposition. Observers criticized plea bargaining both as an "incompetent, inefficient, and lazy method of.
administering justice" and as a compromise of a defendant's right to a jury trial.[52] The response has produced various.
justifications for the use of plea bargaining that are evident in the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on the subject. These.
justifications include the benefits provided by plea bargaining to both the state and the defendant,[53] its potential for encouraging.
rehabilitation,[54] its efficiency,[55] a presumption of equal bargaining power between parties[56] and the characterization of the.
process as merely a choice between unpleasant alternatives that does not drive defendants to false self-condemnation.[57].
The Supreme Court did not address the constitutionality of plea bargaining until after its establishment as a part of the criminal.
justice system. Initially, the Court questioned the validity of the plea bargaining process as burdening the defendant's right to a jury.
trial. In United States v. Jackson, the Court invalidated a statute that allowed the imposition of the death penalty only after a jury.
trial.[58] The Court found that the statute put "an impermissible burden upon the exercise of a constitutional right."[59] In strident.
language, the majority opinion declared that any provisions the purposes or effects of which are "to chill the assertion of.
constitutional rights by penalizing those who choose to exercise them, . . . [are] patently unconstitutional.
