Plea bargaining shifts sentencing control from legislatures to courtroom actors’ discretion

Evidence

As critics claim, plea bargaining does transfer control over sentencing from state legislatures and judges operating within statutory guidelines to judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys collectively exercising broad discretion. Yet the critics’ charge that this insulates sentencing from popular control is only partly valid. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1809

Categorization

• DEFINE: Frames plea bargaining as a transfer of institutional power rather than a mere procedural convenience.
• XREF: Connects to judicial policymaking and popular control themes of the course. — connects to: Severity of charges drives defendants toward trial or negotiated pleas — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1664; Repeat players in one courtroom develop shared familiarity that shapes plea bargaining — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1749; Repeated interaction among courtroom workgroup members promotes cooperative plea bargaining — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1784 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Plea bargaining operates as a rough informal system of precedent #expands (0.95) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1751
• Prosecutors, not judges, dominate U.S. criminal outcomes via plea bargaining #expands (0.95)
• Discretionary practices like plea bargaining and charge dismissal escape or defy legal standards #corroborates (0.95) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2053
• Plea bargaining persists even when caseload and evidence cannot explain it #complicates (0.85) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1773
• Caseload pressures alone cannot explain plea bargaining rates #complicates (0.85)
• Plea bargains have pushed jury trials into a small corner of the criminal process #expands (0.85) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 845
• Guilty pleas, not trials, now dominate criminal case disposition #expands (0.85)
• Plea bargaining dominated criminal case processing long before modern caseload growth #complicates (0.80) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1767
• Criticisms of plea bargaining often actually target features of the criminal justice system generally #complicates (0.75) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1810