The Morality Of Plea-Bargaining In America

Risk in America A little over a year ago I was a senior in high school, leaving school with the weekend ahead of me, ready to unwind, and enjoy the night with my friends. On my trip home my mother called me and asked if I could go out of my way to pick my sister up from school; reluctantly, I tell her that I will. Before that call my friends and I had established that I would be driving us to the senior class tailgate before the football game that night. Wanting to get to the tailgate faster, I begin to force my foot on the gas pedal a little more, without thinking about the consequences of my risk. Suddenly, I look back in my rear view mirror and see the dreaded red, blue, and white lights flashing. I look down at my speedometer and realize …show more content…
Innocent Americans accused of crime are more likely to take the guilty plea because it will give them a lighter sentence, than if they were to go on trial. We accept the system that we have now, and its flaws, because risk taking is a part of American life. In the article “The Morality of Copping a Plea”, Steve Maich tells that the system too often relies on intimidation and coercion to make defendants take the guilty plea. (2) The coercion into the guilty plea creates risk for Americans, but as a culture we are so overwhelmed in risk we accept the risk of guilty pleas. The reason guilty pleas are still acceptable is because Americans love being put in the spot to take a risk. In our Constitution it does not say that there should be a risk in trial but risk taking is so integrated into our life that we accept it. Americans comfort with the unmoral system is evidence of how important risk is to our culture. We would rather accept the unconstitutional methods that the system imposes on us than take away the risk that the system forces us …show more content…
Even though risk taking is so integrated into our lives, we need to learn how to make the unconscious risks we take more conscious. We need to be able to gain control of the risks we come across, so our society does not become out of control. It is just as important to be able to separate reasonable risk from the unreasonable, as it is to remember how risk taking has built our culture and country into what it is today. In our country we have risk that can be useful to us and risk that we love just for entertainment. People need to be able to separate the risk that our Founding Fathers took and the risky stunts that the Jackass cast partakes in. We must savor risk until we are sure of value that can be gained from