The original idea of course is that it frees up valuable court time and court resources. A defendant with little chance of success in court is incentivised to avoid a vexatious trial and go straight to sentencing.

How rational are the economics? How much did the trial cost the taxpayer compared to how much is it going to cost to provide food, accommodation, recreation facilities, and round-the-clock security to someone for 25 years?

Bureau of Prisons suggests the incarceration will cost $1m ($40k * 25y): https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-03/bop_se_fy_2024_pb_narrati...

That feels like an unusually long sentence but it was also an unusually long trial — 23 calendar days by my count, or one day per year of sentence, so maybe the trial costs versus prison cost match up if lesser crimes have shorter trials and shorter sentences.

Ah yes, efficiency is the ultimate goal, right comrade? What is a little state threatened violence (there is no way to say that 10s of years of forcible incarceration is not a threat of violence, there is no way to say that an increased security classification due to sentence length, and therefor incarceration at a much more violent prison, is not a threat of violence) for the waiver of 2 little rights (plea's include a waiver of the right to a trial and the right to an appeal)? Imagine the efficiency if we could allow the state to use violence to get 'citizens' to volunteer to waive their right to remain silent? So much efficiency comrade. It's not like Constitutional rights are important part of this country, we should treat them like China treats the ones enshrined in the Chinese constitution, just look how efficient that makes China, right comrade?

Can you point to the bit of the US constitution that says it's illegal for sentencing to consider questions of remorse and admission of guilt as factors?

Edit: In a plea, a judge isn't reducing your sentence for contrition. It is the Prosecutor that is lowering the sentence they are asking the court for. The judge reducing your sentence at sentencing happens much later and is seperate from the plea agreement which is the part where the trial tax is introduced because yes, there is a constitutional process for sentencing and the judge definitely would not be allowed as large of variances during sentencing as prosecutors introduce with plea agreements.

So let's take your right to remain silent. You are SPECIFICALLY protected from exercising that right being used against you to assume guilt/impact the process. But with your right to a trial, somehow it is totally OK for the government to punish you for exercising your right. Twist it all you want. We don't punish people for exercising their right to remain silent. You should not be punished for exercising your rights.

Again, the court is REQUIRED to ask and you are REQUIRED to attest during a plea that you weren't coerced, even though everyone in the room knows you were threatened with the trial tax (often times in the tens of years of addition time in prison, which also brings your security classification up because classification is partly based on sentence length, meaning you will also then go to much rougher prisons), yet everyone just lets the entire process be one big lie.

So the process you promote 1. Takes away rights (you can't be said to truly have a right if the government can, at their whim, punish you for using it with tens of years in prison and with being sent to a much rougher prison). 2. Subverts the courts mechanisms to ensure fairness in that it turns the entire 'must ensure there wasn't coercion of a plea' into a giant lie by omission with everyone pretending they don't see it.