In Germany where I live a prosecutor has a legal obligation for prosecuting cases of crimes if he believes the defendent is guilty. A prosecutor is not allowed to say “Well this law is stupid so I won’t prosecute people for breaking it” while in the US that’s within the rights of a prosecutor. This right allows for plea deals to happen in the US.
If you change this basic part about what the mandate of the prosecutor happens to be, you will suddenly get a lot of very bad laws enforced that currently aren’t enforced. If laws against oral sex in some states suddenly get enforced that will create pressure to get rid of those laws but it’s won’t be pretty.
But even if the US would get rid of their current legal system and switch to the German one (which is obviously much better thought out and superior ;) ) and have a culture change to make American bureacrats as law abiding as German one’s there’s still a process whereby plea bargining could cut down on legal costs and time of the trial. There’s a benefit in getting a verdict in a few days instead of years through plea bargaining.
In many situation a plea deal is about more then just getting the person to admit that they are guilty but also to reveal certain other information that’s of interest to the prosecutor. Being able to make a deal to get the information can be useful for the government.
In Germany where I live a prosecutor has a legal obligation for prosecuting cases of crimes if he believes the defendent is guilty. A prosecutor is not allowed to say “Well this law is stupid so I won’t prosecute people for breaking it” while in the US that’s within the rights of a prosecutor. This right allows for plea deals to happen in the US.
If you change this basic part about what the mandate of the prosecutor happens to be, you will suddenly get a lot of very bad laws enforced that currently aren’t enforced. If laws against oral sex in some states suddenly get enforced that will create pressure to get rid of those laws but it’s won’t be pretty.
But even if the US would get rid of their current legal system and switch to the German one (which is obviously much better thought out and superior ;) ) and have a culture change to make American bureacrats as law abiding as German one’s there’s still a process whereby plea bargining could cut down on legal costs and time of the trial. There’s a benefit in getting a verdict in a few days instead of years through plea bargaining.
In many situation a plea deal is about more then just getting the person to admit that they are guilty but also to reveal certain other information that’s of interest to the prosecutor. Being able to make a deal to get the information can be useful for the government.