The Plea Bargaining Blog

Once again, the ABA Criminal Justice Section Academics Committee will host work-in-progress roundtables at the annual Criminal Justice Section Fall Institute in Washington, DC.  The roundtables will be held on  Thursday, October 22, 2015 from 12:30-3:00pm  at the  Loews Madison Hotel , and the ABA will provide sandwiches and drinks for lunch.  The rest of the CJS Fall Institute programs will take place later in the day on Thursday, October 22 and on Friday, October 23 at the same hotel.  The entire ABA CJS Fall Institute Program is available here . We hope you will consider  workshopping  your criminal justice works-in-progress at these roundtables.  Participants will present their work in a roundtable format, and abstracts or drafts will be shared among presenters and discussants in advance of the workshop. If you’re interested in participating, please email an abstract of your paper of no more than 500 words to Lucian Dervan at ...

The New York Times Magazine has an excellent article entitled " The Bail Trap ."  The article discusses the relationship between bail, innocence, and false pleas of guilt.  Below is a portion of the article: With national attention suddenly focused on the criminal-justice system, bail has been cited as an easy target for reformers. But ensuring that no one is held in jail based on poverty would, in many respects, necessitate a complete reordering of criminal justice. The open secret is that in most jurisdictions, bail is the grease that keeps the gears of the overburdened system turning. Faced with the prospect of going to jail for want of bail, many defendants accept plea deals instead, sometimes at their arraignments. New York City courts processed 365,000 arraignments in 2013; well under 5 percent of those cases went all the way to a trial resolution. If even a small fraction of those defendants asserted their right to a trial, criminal courts would be overwhelmed. ...