Argument: Plea bargains incentivize faulty testimony

Support

• Porfilio Circuit Judge. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee v. Sonya Evette SINGLETON, Defendant-Appellant. United States Court of Appeals. Tenth Circuit (en banc) No. 97-3178, Jan. 8, 1999 – “Ms. Singleton takes the position that when Mr. Douglas testified after receiving the government’s promise of lenient treatment in exchange for his truthful testimony, he became a ‘paid ‘occurrence’ witness,’ and testimony from those of such ilk is contrary to the fundamental precepts of American justice because the payment of something of value would give the witness a strong motivation to lie.”

• Chicago Law School Study – A study conducted in 1997 by the Univeristy Of Chicago Law School deemed based on over 10,000 cases analyzed in which plea bargaining took place in exchange for testimony, 23% of criminals testimony’s were in at least one way false.

• Federal Criminal Law: Expediency Over Principle. William L. Anderson. 2/22/2005 – “when nearly all of the witnesses against [Richard Scrushy] are co-workers who were facing decades in prison for ‘committing’ such ‘derivative crimes’ as ‘wire fraud,’ ‘mail fraud,’ and ‘money laundering,’ and who were able to bargain down their sentences to a few years of incarceration, it becomes difficult to ascertain what part of their testimony may be true, and what part false.”

Counter-arguments

but you have to use common sense when dealing with plea bargaining that people will be dishonest and that they will not tell the truth