[RightMillennial]

Frankly, if the courts can't handle the load of the minor cases, those cases should be dropped in favor of pursuing the more severe ones. The courts should be damn well certain someone is in fact guilty before convicting him instead of copping out and allowing plea bargains.

[SuperGent]

Which then brings up the thorny issue of which cases to drop, and why make those things illegal in the first place. I don't know what the alternative is though. Maybe Judge Dredd style law enforcement of police, judge and jury in one job..

[CogitoCogito]

If plea deals were not allowed and cases had to go to trial (with adequate support for public defenders), we (as a society) would find satisfactory answers to those questions. It doesn't mean it would be easy, but if the pressure were there, we'd find a solution. Fewer cases would be heard, fewer people would be jailed, and a truer justice would be served.

Plea bargains allow the justice system to effectively ignore all those costs and instead push them onto a non-representative subset of society.

[GFischer]

In many countries judge and jury is one job - it does have downsides of course, but the way juries are selected in the U.S., I think I prefer it.

[RightMillennial]

That's a good point. Others have answered that and I agree with them. But we also have to work with what we have. Petty things like drug possession should be decriminalized. However, good luck getting Congress or state legislatures to decriminalize minor things that aren't en vogue like marijuana. Taxes should be raised to fund the courts and other vital services. But everyone hates taxes so I doubt that will happen either. I'd really like to avoid the Judge Dredd style enforcement that we seem to be slowly approaching.

[TheCoelacanth]

Good point. Maybe if we made fewer things illegal we wouldn't have more people incarcerated per capita than any other country ever.