[crunchatized]

People's inability to afford bail isn't an argument for plea bargains, that's an argument for letting people go on their own recognizance and abolishing cash bail, instead of keeping half a million unconvicted people in American jails.

Objecting to one criminal justice reform because it might exacerbate how the criminal justice system is also completely unfair in another, equally terrible way isn't very convincing, when you could actually be advocating to eliminate both problems.

And hey, no more innocent people railroaded into guilty pleas like they are under the current system. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-peo...

[slg]

After rereading my comment, I did kind of garble my point. I wasn't meaning to imply that bail is an argument in support of pleas in general. My point was that you can't change part of a system without thinking of the possible effects. Removing the plea system without a plan how to handle the roughly 10 fold increase in criminal trials or how that increase might affect people awaiting trial is like removing a leg of a table without considering how stable it would be with three legs. When proposing a reform you should either be practical, like reducing maximum sentences, or at least holistic if the reforms are impractical. Arguments for simply removing the plea system without considering how it would affect courts or bail is neither practical nor holistic.