Punishment Without Trial
Why Plea Bargaining Is a Bad Deal
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From a prominent criminal law professor, a provocative and timely exploration of how plea bargaining prevents true criminal justice reform and how we can fix it—now in paperback
When Americans think of the criminal justice system, the image that comes to mind is a trial-a standard courtroom scene with a defendant, attorneys, a judge, and most important, a jury. It's a fair assumption. The right to a trial by jury is enshrined in both the body of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It's supposed to be the foundation that undergirds our entire justice system.
But in Punishment Without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining Is a Bad Deal, University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick shows that the popular conception of a jury trial couldn't be further from reality. That bedrock constitutional right has all but disappeared thanks to the unstoppable march of plea bargaining, which began to take hold during Prohibition and has skyrocketed since 1971, when it was affirmed as constitutional by the Supreme Court.
Nearly every aspect of our criminal justice system encourages defendants-whether they're innocent or guilty-to take a plea deal. Punishment Without Trial showcases how plea bargaining has undermined justice at every turn and across socioeconomic and racial divides. It forces the hand of lawyers, judges, and defendants, turning our legal system into a ruthlessly efficient mass incarceration machine that is dogging our jails and punishing citizens because it's the path of least resistance. Professor Hessick makes the case against plea bargaining as she illustrates how it has damaged our justice system while presenting an innovative set of reforms for how we can fix it.
An impassioned, urgent argument about the future of criminal justice reform, Punishment Without Trial will change the way you view the criminal justice system.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
University of North Carolina law professor Hessick argues in this impassioned critique of the criminal justice system that the right to a trial by jury has largely disappeared in America. According to Hessick, more the 90% of federal cases that aren't dismissed end in guilty pleas, and the burden falls disproportionately on people of color and the poor, who rely on overworked public defenders and are more likely to take a deal than defendants with higher incomes. In Hessick's view, the current system of "pressure and pleas"—which commits defendants to pretrial detention, offers lighter sentences for guilty pleas, confiscates money and property from those suspected of crimes, and hides shoddy police work from public scrutiny—has "circumvented most every constitutional and political protection against punishment." Her solutions include higher dismissal rates for low-level criminal charges; the offering of alternatives to incarceration, such as drug rehabilitation programs, as part of plea bargains; and the establishment of conviction and sentencing integrity units within prosecutors' offices. Buttressed by copious statistical evidence, harrowing case studies, and in-depth interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys, and defendants, this is a knowledgeable and persuasive call for change.