What if someone did it and is willing to admit it? Still force them to go to trial, a trial that may take longer than the punishment for their crime? And victims too, say someone robs you, now you're forced to take time off work to attend a trial for the person that admitted to robbing you and also doesn't want a trial.

Plus there would need to be a massive expansion of the court system to accommodate trials for everyone. Where's the money to pay for that going to come from?

Criminal justice reform is necessary, removing plea deals completely is foolishly short sighted.

If you can't afford to give that many people due process you can't afford to imprison them.

That has nothing to do with the ethical impetus. Plea deals are baked in to prevent procedural prosecution.

> Still force them to go to trial, a trial that may take longer than the punishment for their crime?

Yes. People have been coerced into false pleas. The prosecutor should have to prove the case. And if their punishment is so light, we should consider if it should be a crime at all.

>And victims too, say someone robs you, now you're forced to take time off work to attend a trial for the person that admitted to robbing you and also doesn't want a trial.

If you want them to be punished, then the prosecutor has to prove their case. If it is so cut and dry, perhaps they don't need your testimony at all.

>Plus there would need to be a massive expansion of the court system to accommodate trials for everyone. Where's the money to pay for that going to come from?

We get rid of minor crimes that shouldn't be crimes to begin with. Reduce the prison population and you can use the saved money to expand courts a bit, if need be. Was the cost reason enough to not ensure other rights are met, such as work needed to comply with ADA?

>removing plea deals completely is foolishly short sighted.

Not seeing the fundamental violation of rights caused by plea deals is foolishly ignorant.

What if someone did it and is willing to admit it?

Under current policies, that results in more lenient punishment than the innocent who fight their charges. So, yes, try them.

Where is the money for that going to come from? Ending the Drug War would cut the number of criminal cases by more than half.

The whole point of a plea deal is to give a more lenient sentence in exchange for admitting guilt. If that wasn't the case everyone would just go to trial for everything, there's always a chance of getting out.

Even traffic court works this way.

In theory. In practice, extreme punishments, along with penury from the costs of a defense, have to be threatened because the CJ system has lost the ability to deliver justice at trial.

>The whole point of a plea deal is to give a more lenient sentence in exchange for admitting guilt.

Which is the same thing as giving a more extreme sentence to someone insisting on their right to a trial.

If we end plea deals entirely, will we have to go to court for silly things like speeding tickets?

Yes, which would have the effect of cutting down on speeding tickets issued since it's an extra court date for the officer. Many can't be bothered already when you take a ticket to court.

Summary violations are reasonable enough in my opinion as the fine doesn't increase by virtue of attending court.

Require the police to prove their point, make it take some actual work, and perhaps departments will stop using them as a revenue source and focus on more dangerous driving issues than someone going 5 over.

Speeding tickets aren't criminal offenses.