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Defendants have the right to engage in plea bargain contracts at their discretion
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- Timothy Sandefur. "In Defense of Plea Bargaining". Pacific Legal Foundation. Fall 2003 - "The U.S. Supreme Court held in the 1979 case Gannett Co. Inc. v. DePasquale that the public does not 'have an enforceable right to a public trial that can be asserted independently of the parties in the litigation.' That seems reasonable; while requiring jury trials may make sense as a matter of policy, it is not an inalienable right. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable by nature. But the right to a jury is a civil right, not a natural right. If defendants can waive personal jurisdiction, and waive their right to an attorney, there seems little sense in saying that the jury right is inalienable. Today, it seems to be universally conceded that the right to a jury trial is alienable, and nothing in the Constitution says otherwise. It follows that a defendant can “sell” his right to trial if he so chooses. And at least some defendants — often guilty ones — benefit from doing so."
- Timothy Sandefur. "In Defense of Plea Bargaining". Pacific Legal Foundation. Fall 2003 - "Government policies that chill the exercise of constitutional rights ought to be regarded with great suspicion. But they are not per se unconstitutional or unjust. Government, like private businesses, often purchases the rights of citizens: members of the military are forbidden to criticize the president, for instance, and private contractors doing business with the government must often comply with “living wage” requirements. Unwise as those policies may be, they are not a violation of anybody’s rights, because they are based on the parties’ consent. If the tactics used to induce consent are so overbearing as to obviate that consent, then the procedure should be reviewed under due process standards and, in a case in which the prosecution’s tactics are fraudulent, they should be struck down. But where that is not the case, a plea bargain does not itself violate the Constitution. Finally, it is true that the Framers included a right to trial by jury among our vital constitutional guarantees, but that does not mean defendants lack the freedom to waive that right or trade it to the state in exchange for a lighter sentence. Mere efficiency does not justify resorting to a constitutionally flawed procedure. But there are sufficient justifications for plea bargaining. Its flaws are procedural, not constitutional, and it needs reform, not abolition."
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