The Disappearance of the Jury Trial in the Age of the Plea Bargain

One of the most fundamental tenets of our legal system is the right to a trial by jury. Enshrined in the Sixth Amendment, this right promotes impartiality in criminal and civil cases and provides a check on the powers of the state. However, the current era of mass incarceration has jeopardized this fundamental right and transformed the justice system today into “a system of pleas, not a system of trials”, as stated by former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in a 2012 opinion. Citing the fact that 97% of federal convictions and 94% of state convictions now are attained through a plea deal rather than as the result of a trial, Justice Kennedy identifies a key trend that threatens to undermine the rights of criminal defendants. 

Although plea bargains ideally would represent a way for guilty defendants to attain a reduced sentence by admitting guilt while relieving the state of the burden and financial cost of going through a trial, the increasing numbers in plea bargains are indicative of a shift in criminal justice policy that has coerced defendants into accepting unfair plea bargains. This phenomenon has contributed to an overloaded carceral system and the highest prison population per 100,000 people in the world. 

This shift in our criminal justice system began in the late 20th century, as the War on Drugs and policy centered around a “tough on crime” approach led to an overhaul of the system. The introduction of mandatory minimum sentences in particular had a significant effect on plea bargaining. These laws which prevent judges from exercising discretion in sentencing and instead automatically impose specified harsh sentences often intimidate defendants into accepting a plea deal. Even if a defendant is innocent, theymay be compelled to plead guilty out of fear that a trial would convict them anyway and send them to prison for potentially decades. A guilty plea, at least, would allow them to leave prison earlier and get on with their lives sooner. To that end, a 2020 survey recently found that 85% of defense attorneys believe that mandatory minimums play either a medium or large role in the reduction of jury trials. 

The same “tough on crime” approach that brought mandatory minimum sentences also set forth the era of mass incarceration that has overwhelmed our courts and prisons. The criminalization of poverty, drug use, and homelessness as well as a crackdown on petty crimes have led to astronomical arrest numbers. Police in the United States routinely arrest over 10 million individuals per year, the vast majority of which are arrested for nonviolent crimes and misdemeanors. With such high arrest numbers, plea bargaining takes on an essential role in the criminal justice system, as it would be simply impossible to conduct a jury trial for each one of these individuals. Courts themselves do have the capacity of conducting so many trials, and public defenders are already too overworked with their caseloads to be able to bring each case to trial. Thus, because of these arrest numbers, many actors in the criminal justice system, from conviction-seeking prosecutors to overworked public defenders, have incentives to cut plea deals and send people to prison, often without regard to their innocence or guilt. 

The era of mass incarceration has deprived many individuals of their livelihood and liberty, sticking them behind bars for years for relatively minor offenses. In addition, it has robbed defendants of one of our most fundamental constitutional rights - the right to be tried by a jury of our peers. Thus, the predominance of plea bargaining in our criminal justice system is an issue that should concern us all. This is a social justice issue, a racial justice issue, and a flagrant infringement on our constitutional rights. While the solution is not to eliminate plea bargaining completely - it can have a effective role in a functioning system by benefiting both the benefit and the state, the policy that has caused this dramatic expansion of our carceral system must be re-examined and reformulated to reduce arrest numbers and allow a greater percentage of criminal defendants to exercise their constitutional right for a jury trial. The solution to this problem must be a multi-faceted reimagination of the criminal policy that has led to such a dramatic increase in incarceration over recent decades. By making criminal law more equitable, by holding prosecutors and police to higher standards, and by offering more support to Public Defender Offices around the country, we can envision a future in which fewer individuals are incarcerated and constitutional rights for a jury trial are better protected.