Rikers Drove My Innocent Patient to Plead Guilty
Plea bargaining should not exist. It makes a mockery of justice, turns the legal system into a marketplace where you bid for relative degrees of guilt and are rewarded for "copping a plea", and occasionally snares the innocent.<p>The war on drugs has clogged the system, but also our somewhat lawless and rudderless population since the early 1960s, when a generally orderly society gave way to a general contempt for authority.  And the population has grown far faster than the number of courts to accommodate it.<p>I think the only solution is to legalize drugs and build more courts to address the remaining cases more quickly and efficiently, without throwing due process out the window.<p>Better education would help, too. And instill moral education in our children in the schools and at home. In the end, a more moral society will bring about a more moral justice system.