#Plea Bargain

Plea bargain is the courtroom flea market where criminals parcel out their worst crimes to craft a smaller total sentence. In truth, it is nothing but a ruthless price list that turns justice into a tagged commodity and measures victory by cost. The defendant learns the self-defense art called cooperation, while prosecutors peddle convictions in the speech of negotiation. Fairness becomes a gamble determined more by bargaining skill than by the weight of the offense. And we become consumers of the judicial catalog, poring over its pages the more we fear the harshest penalties.