14 Guiding Principles to Enhance the Plea Bargaining System According to ABA Group

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The American Bar Association’s (ABA) Plea Bargain Task Force has released a set of 14 recommendations for creating a more equitable and transparent plea bargaining process. The recommendations were made after three years of study and included principles for judges, lawyers, lawmakers, and other stakeholders in the criminal justice system. The task force was created in 2018 by Lucian Dervan, chair of the Criminal Justice Section, in response to a growing body of evidence suggesting the potentially coercive impact of plea bargaining on innocent defendants.

The report found that plea bargaining offers benefits such as efficiency, cost savings, and incentivizing defendants to accept responsibility for their crimes. However, it also identified several problems with the current system, including the potential for innocent defendants to plead guilty, the allowance of police and government misconduct, and the exacerbation of existing racial inequalities in the criminal justice system. The task force found that defendants of color often fare worse than white defendants during the plea process, with Black defendants in drug cases receiving harsher sentences than white defendants.

The principles outlined in the report include the promotion of transparency, accountability, justice, and legitimacy in the criminal justice system through a vibrant and active docket of criminal trials and pretrial and post-trial litigation. Additionally, guilty pleas should not result from impermissibly coercive incentives or incentives that overbear a defendant’s will. In general, while some difference between the sentence offered before trial and the sentence received after the trial is permissible, a substantial difference undermines the integrity of the criminal system. It reflects a penalty for exercising someone’s right to trial. The report also calls for eliminating the trial penalty, which refers to the substantial difference in sentencing between pleading guilty and going to trial.

  

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The task force also recommended collecting data about the plea process and each plea, including the history of plea offers in a case. The data collection should be used to assess and monitor racial and other biases in the plea process. Furthermore, the report recommends that law students, lawyers, and judges receive training on the use and practice of plea bargaining consistent with the findings and recommendations of the report.

Dervan notes that the task force’s recommendations are broad and could be embraced by prosecutors, defense attorneys, courts, administrators, and advocacy organizations. The principles can guide reform efforts, such as new ethics opinions, amending office policies, creating new legislation, and seeking court rulings that establish the importance of protecting the Sixth Amendment right to trial.

In summary, the ABA Plea Bargain Task Force has released a set of 14 recommendations to create a more equitable and transparent plea bargaining process. The recommendations address the potential for innocent defendants to plead guilty, the allowance of police and government misconduct, and the exacerbation of existing racial inequalities in the criminal justice system. The task force’s recommendations can guide reform efforts by prosecutors, defense attorneys, courts, administrators, and advocacy organizations.

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ABA group issues 14 guiding principles to improve plea bargaining system