Pleading Out

January 24, 2022
Plea bargaining is a “tool for satisfying the insatiable appetite of the prison-industrial complex,” according to this well-reasoned polemic. Contending that the U.S. justice system serves the wealthy at the expense of the poor and marginalized, civil rights lawyer Canon traces the rise of plea bargaining to 19th-century Boston, where upper-class Brahmins sought to stifle worker solidarity by bringing labor unions under control of the courts (rather than outlawing them altogether) and simultaneously stripping juries of their “law-finding function.” Canon also documents the steady expansion of the criminal code from Prohibition through the war on drugs, contending that the “endless supply of criminal laws”—which require the expediency of plea bargaining to enforce—serves to turn “large swaths of the working class into criminals.” He litters the book with examples of miscarriages of justice, including the story of a man who was given a mandatory life sentence under California’s “three strikes” law for stealing $150 worth of videotapes, and spotlights those who have advocated against the misuse of plea bargaining, including Alaska attorney general Avrum Gross, who banned the practice in the 1970s. Full of persuasive evidence of how the courts are used by those in power to enforce the status quo, this is a cogent call for change.

Starred review from February 11, 2022

The majority of criminal cases in the United States don't go to trial; instead, prosecutors obtain convictions through plea bargaining, in which defendants plead guilty to a lesser charge in exchange for a more lenient sentence. With this astute work, civil rights lawyer Canon (law, Univ. of Louisville) argues that this devastating, absurd practice has ruined countless lives. Canon chronicles the origins of plea bargaining and discusses how it is weaponized against people--especially low-income people and people of color--to pressure them into accepting punishments for crimes they didn't commit. He weaves together stories of the major players, including the accused, the victims, and the jurors, as well as the prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and lawmakers who are caught up in a system that punishes those who seek access to a trial. Readers will be infuriated by accounts that illustrate all too clearly how plea bargaining has ruined lives and maintained historical inequities. Canon also lays out a nuanced, practical strategy for achieving lasting change in the criminal justice system and analyzes the barriers and misconceptions that keep plea bargaining alive. VERDICT Written clearly and persuasively, with compassion and expertise, Canon's work is an essential read, especially for those who interact with or are interested in policing, incarceration, and the justice system.--Sarah Schroeder

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2022
A full-throated denunciation of a judicial system grown lazy, complacent, and overly given to forcing confessions for its own convenience. Civil rights attorney Canon, whose legal work helped secure nationwide marriage equality, argues that the plea-bargaining system on which courts rely originally served the ruling class by "dividing up America's ever-growing working class before it got big enough to take over." He opens with a 1972 case in which a Kentuckian caught up in a check-kiting scheme in the amount of $88.30 insisted on his innocence and rejected the prosecution's offer of a five-year prison sentence without trial. That refusal earned him a life sentence, according to a statute that allows the prosecution to seek maximal penalties for the recalcitrant. Small wonder that so many accused Americans take plea deals, "a quotidian injustice that most of the public doesn't know or care much about." This injustice, Canon insists, is a feature and not a bug of a legal system that would otherwise have to bring cases to trial, which, he argues, would not be a bad thing, since it would force prosecutors to actually prove guilt before a jury. Of course, as the author also shows, the jury system is fundamentally flawed since it penalizes workers whose employers don't make allowances for public service--workers who are mostly minority and working-class, which explains the overwhelming Whiteness of juries. Canon incisively demonstrates how the rise of plea bargaining is a way for prosecutors to decrease their workloads. "Expediency, not fairness, is the principal concern," he writes. Since plea bargains usually carry mandatory jail time, the ploy explains why our population of the imprisoned and the criminal class is so much higher than that of other nations. There are cures, Canon argues at the end of his well-reasoned argument. For one, "prosecutors can voluntarily screen cases to streamline the docket rather than just scramble to resolve a high volume of cases in a short amount of time." A compelling document of interest to anyone concerned with civil rights and an equitable system of justice.

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