Bingo. I think it's high time we outlawed the plea bargain entirely. If it's important enough to the public good that someone be locked in a cage for years or even decades, it deserves the cost of giving the accused their day in court, every time, no matter what.

But jury trials are expensive, and time consuming. And no-one uses them anymore, because the system is broken (long waiting times), and there's no reason to fix it (since no-one uses them anymore).

It's much cheaper to say "confess your crimes or face much heavier penalties". It worked for the French Revolution, the Soviets and the Inquisition, why shouldn't it work in the USA?

Besides, the prosecutors are pretty even handed. They wouldn't prosecute someone if they didn't think they deserved a stiff penalty. As Carmen Ortiz says; "This is an adversarial system. We're here to prosecute."

> But jury trials are expensive, and time consuming.

[I think you're being sarcastic, but...]

The converse, plea-bargaining making prosecution easy and profitable (see seizure law), has resulted in huge expansion of laws making ordinary activities illegal.

If it was hard and expensive then we wouldn't outlaw behavior every time some twit get's their panties' in a twist. And we wouldn't automatically bend-over and use the criminal justice system to prop up failing business models.