But we should not reward them for doing so. Never should a person be presented with a choice between a certain lesser punishment, or a fair trail and a potential greater punishment. That's the "bargain" in "plea bargain," and it's completely reprehensible.
You say, "few defendants would utter that phrase without there being either a benefit to owning up, or an extra penalty for not doing so." That's exactly how it is! A plea bargain isn't just, "we both know you did it, so just confess and let's skip all the lawyers and stuff." It's always, "We both know you did it, so confess and we'll let you out early. If you insist on taking this to trial then we will throw the book at you." A lot of innocent people will take the plea when faced with that choice.
Not every crime needs to go to trial, but every accused criminal needs to have the right to a trial without being punished for exercising that right. If you remove the punishment then you'll no longer have plea bargains, just pleas.
I think that a partial measure towards reforming plea bargains would be to require the police to present their evidence for the court to review before entry of a plea. This creates a public record that somebody could investigate in the future. There could also be a provision that if exculptatory evidence is revealed in the future, the plea can be rescinded.
Oh man, that's so wrong. Even where there is a LARGE change of acquittal, many choose a plea bargain because they cannot afford a good attorney or because the prosecutor is threatening them with something crazy like 40 years for downloading a movie. Would you take the risk of 40 years, knowing you're innocent? Do you have enough faith in a jury to put the rest of your life in their hands? I doubt it.
That said, I don't believe it's very difficult to make an ethical and legal case against the concept of plea bargaining in the first place. I would argue it's very important to a free society to waste everyone's time proving that an accused person is guilty, and that not doing so violates the sixth amendment and fundamental human rights.
> If there's a suspicion of false confession, meaning that the suspect may not be the offender
Are you assuming that this represents a minority of cases? Who has to suspect that the accused is not really guilty, a jury of his peers?
In reality it becomes a punishment for demanding a fair trial.
How? Court is the process for sorting that out and assessing whether there is doubt, and the extent of that doubt.
It's basically the same as setting up your conditions to take advantage of short-circuit evaluation. You don't put the time-consuming and resource-hungry part first.
Were there even the slimmest chance of acquittal, few defendants would utter that phrase without there being either a benefit to owning up, or an extra penalty for not doing so. This is what plea bargaining and TICs are for.
If there's a suspicion of false confession, meaning that the suspect may not be the offender, that should normally be sorted out before court, so that the correct offender is tried for the correct offence (e.g. wasting police time if voluntary, or some kind of intimidation/coercion offence if not)?