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Plea Bargaining and the Structure of the Criminal Process

NCJ Number
89390
Journal
Justice System Journal Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Dated: (Winter 1982) Pages: 338-354
Author(s)
M M Feeley
Date Published
1982
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This article examines plea bargaining in historical perspective. It argues that plea bargaining and related inducements to plead guilty are not primarily the products of limitations of resources or the drive for organizational efficiency.
Abstract
Rather plea bargaining has its origins in changes in the very structure and theory of the criminal process that have taken place during the past 200 years: developments in the operative assumptions and theory about the criminal process; changes in the substantive criminal law and criminal procedure; and the rise of full-time professionals who administer the criminal process. The thesis is that negotiation has increased in direct proportion to adversariness; that is, the rise of plea bargaining is a consequence of increased adversariness, precisely the opposite of what is commonly thought. (Author abstract)

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