ABA Adopts the 14 Principles on Plea Bargaining
As Chair of the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section from 2018-2019, I had the pleasure of creating three task forces. One of those task forces, which I went on to co-chair, was the Task Force on Plea Bargaining. The Task Force was comprised of representatives from the prosecution, defense, academy, advocacy organizations, and the state and federal systems. After over three years of work, we released our report and recommendations earlier this year (a blog post about the report is available here ). Included in our report were 14 Principles that we developed to create a fairer, more transparent, and more just criminal system. Last week in Denver, Colorado at the ABA Annual Meeting, I moved adoption of those 14 Principles in ABA Resolution 502. The Resolution received no opposition and was overwhelmingly adopted by the ABA House of Delegates. With the passage of Resolution 502, the 14 Principles now become the official policy of the ABA. It has been a long road and there i