I think you are forgetting a major player in the criminal justice system: the defense attorney. The defense attorney already has both the expertise and the incentive to accurately advise the defendant as to the likelihood of a conviction on each charge.
The defense attorney doesn’t have access to all the evidence that the prosecutor has. This proposal essentially forces the prosecutor to state at the beginning how strong his evidence is.
Having common knowledge about what the prosecutor believes about the likelihood that his charges stick is very useful for the defense attorney when it comes to negotiating a plea deal.
Being able to argue in court “Even the prosecutor only believes that there’s a 10% chance that this charge sticks” is a valuable move even if the defense attorney knows that there’s a 10% chance.
That’s not a bug, that’s a feature! The prosecutor knows what evidence the prosecutor has, but the defendant knows whether he did the crime. We want the defendant to make the plea decision blind to the strength of the prosecutor’s evidence, because guilty defendants will guess that the prosecutor has strong evidence and plead guilty (even if that guess is wrong), and innocent defendants will guess that the prosecutor has weak evidence and proceed to trial. This is how we want the system to work.
I don’t think the intention of the plea deal system should be to get people who wouldn’t be found guilty in a court of law to plead guilty for any reason.
I think subverting the right to a trial by jury by creating a system that encourages people to plead guilty who the jury wouldn’t find guilty is bad. Overall I think the defendant has to little power in the US system and moving the system to give them more powers is good even if that occasionally means guilty people go free.
I think you are forgetting a major player in the criminal justice system: the defense attorney. The defense attorney already has both the expertise and the incentive to accurately advise the defendant as to the likelihood of a conviction on each charge.
The defense attorney doesn’t have access to all the evidence that the prosecutor has. This proposal essentially forces the prosecutor to state at the beginning how strong his evidence is.
Having common knowledge about what the prosecutor believes about the likelihood that his charges stick is very useful for the defense attorney when it comes to negotiating a plea deal.
Being able to argue in court “Even the prosecutor only believes that there’s a 10% chance that this charge sticks” is a valuable move even if the defense attorney knows that there’s a 10% chance.
That’s not a bug, that’s a feature! The prosecutor knows what evidence the prosecutor has, but the defendant knows whether he did the crime. We want the defendant to make the plea decision blind to the strength of the prosecutor’s evidence, because guilty defendants will guess that the prosecutor has strong evidence and plead guilty (even if that guess is wrong), and innocent defendants will guess that the prosecutor has weak evidence and proceed to trial. This is how we want the system to work.
I don’t think the intention of the plea deal system should be to get people who wouldn’t be found guilty in a court of law to plead guilty for any reason.
I think subverting the right to a trial by jury by creating a system that encourages people to plead guilty who the jury wouldn’t find guilty is bad. Overall I think the defendant has to little power in the US system and moving the system to give them more powers is good even if that occasionally means guilty people go free.