#legalstudies

I've been reading through some case law and I'm convinced that plea bargaining has gotten out of hand. It's not about justice; it's about expediency. Judges and prosecutors use it as a tool to clear their dockets, often at the expense of the accused. Take the case of Colorado v. Bertine, where the Supreme Court essentially gave law enforcement a green light to plea bargain their way around Fourth Amendment protections. The whole system seems to have devolved into a game of coercive negotiation, rather than a genuine pursuit of truth. What's the point of having a trial if a defendant's 'best' option is to plead guilty to something they might not have done?