(The following short essay was originally written for a prosecution clinic class. I re-discovered it while digging through my archives in preparation for writing a thesis on the ethics of plea-bargaining. I thought it might be worth posting here.)
Suppose a defendant pleads guilty to a crime, and that the judge has some discretion in sentencing. Should a prosecutor recommend that the judge impose a lighter sentence on the defendant than would otherwise have been imposed solely for the reason that the defendant, by pleading guilty, has saved the state considerable resources by sparing it from trial? Conversely, should a defendant who insists upon going to trial where conviction is likely have a relatively heavier sentence imposed solely for the reason that the defendant, by insisting on a trial, has cost the state considerable resources in a trial?
It is clear to me that many stakeholders in the criminal justice system (prosecutors, police officers, judges) would affirmatively answer both of the above questions.
I think this answer is against justice. Given that defendants have a procedural right to a trial, why should a defendant be penalized for exercising that procedural right? Why should the state's cost of trial fall on him particularly, in the form of a higher sentence?
You might say: "Because the defendant has the power to avoid the trial by pleading guilty, and where the defendant recognizes the probability of his conviction anyway, it's just wasteful for him to make the state endure the cost of a trial." But if blame follows directly from causal ability to avoid a trial in this way, then the state is also properly blameworthy for "causing" the trial, insofar as it could have avoided the trial simply by not arresting and charging the defendant.
Moreover, this sort of sentencing factor has nothing to do with the just deserts of the defendant for the crime he committed, as that crime, nor does it have anything to do with other goals of criminal justice, like denunciation, rehabilitation, and deterrence. And surely nobody deserves punishment merely for having cost the state resources in virtue of exercising a right: we don't punish social security recipients, welfare recipients, those who call emergency services for a legitimate reason, or licensed users of state roads, even though all of these people impose costs on the state in the exercise of a right.
So, sentencing a defendant more harshly merely because that defendant caused the state to go to trial is simply unjust and inconsistent with our own deeper principles. It's punitiveness without an appropriate object, engendered perhaps by a dislike for whatever bad thing the defendant has in fact done, and a failure to separate that bad thing, whatever it is, from the legitimate exercise of a right which, like many other legitimate exercises of rights, nevertheless has a social cost. Conversely, justice is not served by "easing up" on defendants merely because, in pleading guilty, they have saved state resources, nor is justice served (conversely) by imposing extra punishment because a defendant has failed to plea.
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Well, I suppose the first thing to question is whether the baseline sentence is the one received after trial, the one received after a guilty plea, or somewhere in between. Unless the answer is "somewhere in between" we can have a carrot or a stick but not both.
ReplyDeleteSecond, although we know the real reason for the reduced sentence (or threat of a larger one) is the possibility of saving resources, isn't the ostensible focus on the criminal's willingness to admit guilt? Why is this different than imposing a smaller sentence on criminals who turn themselves in before the police have to conduct an investigation?
I think we can separate the question of:
ReplyDeletea) Is efficiency (saving / spending state resources) a good reason to punish someone more or less?
From the questions of:
b) How do we make sense of the idea of "more or less" with regard to punishment (your question of the "baseline")?
c) Is "willingness to admit guilt" itself necessarily a reason for less punishment imposed by the tribunal?
d) Is it possibly such a reason?
At the moment, I'm only asking question a, but the rest are really good questions as well. I promise to think on them. :)