the prosecutor makes the decision whether to plea bargain a case.
who makes the decision whether to plea bargain a case?
prosecutor
wilson received the 10-year sentence following a refusal to enter into a proposed plea bargain, stating his adamant belief that "it's all about doing what's right [...] and what's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong. and i'm just standing up for what i believe in." his decision to reject the plea agreement, as well as his continued fight to overturn his conviction, takes into account that sex offenders in georgia must register themselves and are subject to penalty laws for life, and that the law was not intended to penalize teenage partners. as the law stands, wilson would not even be able to return to his own family after an early release, as he has an 8-year-old sister jiaya bennett with whom he would be forbidden contact. the other young males involved (including one charged for the same oral sex acts as wilson) accepted plea bargains with the possibility of parole; they are required to register as convicted sex offenders. wilson had been offered a plea bargain for a five-year sentence with the possibility of parole before the trial but rejected the offer. after the jury had returned the guilty verdict, the prosecutor offered the same 5-year plea bargain again, and wilson refused again. another young man involved in the case had accepted a similar 5-year plea bargain and was paroled after two years.
wilson v. state
the extent to which innocent people will accept a plea bargain and plead guilty is contentious and has been subjected to considerable research. much research has focused on the relatively few actual cases where innocence was subsequently proven, such as successful appeals for murder and rape based upon dna evidence, which tend to be atypical of trials as a whole (being by their nature only the most serious kinds of crime). other studies have focused on presenting hypothetical situations to subjects and asking what choice they would make. more recently some studies have attempted to examine actual reactions of innocent persons generally, when faced with actual plea bargain decisions. a study by dervan and edkins (2013) attempted to recreate a real-life controlled plea bargain situation, rather than merely asking theoretical responses to a theoretical situation—a common approach in previous research. it placed subjects in a situation where an accusation of academic fraud (cheating) could be made, of which some subjects were in fact by design actually guilty (and knew this), and some were innocent but faced seemingly strong evidence of guilt and no verifiable proof of innocence. each subject was presented with the evidence of guilt and offered a choice between facing an academic ethics board and potentially a heavy penalty in terms of extra courses and other forfeits, or admitting guilt and accepting a lighter "sentence". the study found that as expected from court statistics, around 90% of accused subjects who were actually guilty chose to take the plea-bargain and plead guilty. it also found that around 56% of subjects who were actually innocent (and privately knew it) also to take the plea-bargain and plead guilty, for reasons including avoiding formal quasi-legal processes, uncertainty, possibility of greater harm to personal future plans, or deprivation of home environment due to remedial courses. the authors stated:
plea bargain