Judge Zayas on plea bargaining and prosecutorial practices
Zayas notes 98% of criminal convictions result from guilty pleas, yet prosecutors often don't make plea offers timely, and calls for district attorneys to commit to earlier plea bargaining in most cases.
This brings me to the next point.
In New York, 98% of criminal convictions are the result of guilty pleas, not trials.
Whatever the downsides of this state of affairs, the fact is that a very small percentage of criminal cases are tried.
Nevertheless, in many cases in New York City, including many relatively straightforward cases, prosecutors do not make plea offers in a timely manner.
While there may be strategic reasons for the defense to tolerate or even encourage delay, that is almost never true for prosecutors.
From the perspective of prosecutors, criminal cases typically do not get better with age.
But judges do not control plea bargaining.
Prosecutors do.
So another issue that I hope will be discussed today is whether our district attorneys will commit to engaging in plea bargaining earlier in most cases.