Although the root fault is that a "guilty" plea costs the court less resources than a "not guilty" plea. If you wanted to solve this properly, you'd require that even if the defendant pleads guilty, there still has to be the full process of jury selection, presenting evidence and arguments (even if the defence's argument is "yeah, I did it") and deliberation (which, by design, gives twelve opportunities for someone to say "what the hell are we doing; this is clearly bunk" without that person being under threat of twenty-five-to-life for contempt of cop).
Edit: oh right, and you also need to make offering plea bargains (outside of state's-evidence cases) a twenty-five-to-life felony for the prosecutor.
According to the Amazon summary from the linked book:
"a major shift in prosecutor behavior that occurred in the mid-1990s, when prosecutors began bringing felony charges against arrestees about twice as often as they had before"
How does that work exactly when the crime is against a plant you use for personal medical reasons. Love it or hate it, medical weed is cheaper and easier to produce then most opioid alternatives. [i.e. morphine, codeine, oxytocin, etc.] And its safer to produce, process, and distribute to end users [consumers]. So grandma gets a felony conviction because she grew her medical weed in her backyard garden and now has 10-15yrs of her life wasted in a prison cell... How exactly does the math of justice add that up? Grandma grew 20 plants because she wanted to make her medicine and have enough left over to make some edible cookies... Grandma's of America union doesn't exist, grandma is left to the mercy of a corrupt justice systems that mandates minimum federal sentencing guidelines regardless of a defendants circumstances. The math doesn't add up, it's cruel punishment and unfair treatment of the law. I mean if grandma had a meth lab then yeah she deserves to "due the time" but for weed, no one should go to jail for weed... it's a complete waste of tax money..IMHO
Although the root fault is that a "guilty" plea costs the court less resources than a "not guilty" plea. If you wanted to solve this properly, you'd require that even if the defendant pleads guilty, there still has to be the full process of jury selection, presenting evidence and arguments (even if the defence's argument is "yeah, I did it") and deliberation (which, by design, gives twelve opportunities for someone to say "what the hell are we doing; this is clearly bunk" without that person being under threat of twenty-five-to-life for contempt of cop).
Edit: oh right, and you also need to make offering plea bargains (outside of state's-evidence cases) a twenty-five-to-life felony for the prosecutor.