Ok, you feel strongly about plea deals but I still don't understand what the theory of supposed injustice is supposed to be. Why aren't people like Ken White railing against plea deals? Or maybe some are? Etc.

Harvard's Bill Stuntz wrote about plea bargains extensively before his death.[1] His last book was the "Collapse of American Criminal Justice."

The issue isn't the plea bargain itself, but the incentives to make lots of 'suboptimal' deals. I've seen similar, recent arguments about whether #MeToo perpetrators should be allowed to settle with victims, because of our public interest in identifying attackers.

All things being equal, negotiated resolutions are great. But politics, over-criminalization, career incentives, and budget pressure swamp any real negotiating power by defendants. No one wants to kill any individual's deal. But the deals are the best way to 'see' the effect of the system's incentives.

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/4093405?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con...

Thanks, I'll check it out. Curiously, Stuntz's names pops up in one of the article linked in thread by the cursory googlemaster as a supporter (presumably in fair conditions) plea bargains.

Critics of the criminal justice system have been railing against the utterly lopsided plea bargaining system, among many other CJ issues that all serve to prop up the others. Some cursory googling turns up:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/796954

https://reason.com/archives/2011/07/05/the-devils-bargain

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/us/tough-sentences-help-p...

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/go-to-tria...

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-peo...

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/12/26/plea-bargainin...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-injustice-of-the-plea-barga...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocen...

https://www.injusticewatch.org/interactives/2018/plea-bargai...

I haven't gone through every single one of these with a fine toothed comb but none seem to have a problem with plea bargaining itself - the root problems they describe are things like draconian sentences, overly broad prosecutorial discretion, outright fabrication of evidence, etc. The remedy suggested by the poster above - just getting rid of plea bargains isn't going to help in the cases described by these articles.

The injustice is that they result in punishment for asserting your right to a trial.

This 'argument' reminds me a bit of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZy_VR1ifPc

Scare quotes and an undescriptive link to a random YouTube video... if you want to actually have a conversation here, this is not the way to do it.

I asked you a question and you basically repeated 'it is wrong'. And they're not 'scare quotes', your response is not an argument and not an invitation to conversation.

You asked what was unjust about it and I answered. It’s repetitive because I assumed you had missed it in my first comment, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked.

If this answer is not satisfactory to you then perhaps you could tell me what you’re after. Because as far as I can tell, this is a really simple question and answer. What is unjust? Punishing people for asserting their right to trial. Boom, done. If you want more, ask for it.