Plea bargaining in the U.S. criminal justice system is just.

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Plea bargaining in the U.S. criminal justice system is just.". Your opponent's style: confrontational and questioning

Resolved: Plea bargaining in the United States criminal justice system is just.

You're dead wrong - plea bargaining is the antithesis of justice, it's a coercion machine that makes a mockery of "innocent until proven guilty."Listen - your entire premise crumbles when you realize that 98% of federal convictions and 95% of state convictions come from plea bargains [1]. This isn't justice, it's a conveyor belt assembly line where trials have become "rare legal artifacts" [2]. Think about what you're actually defending here. You're calling a system "just" where innocent people routinely plead guilty because they're terrified of the alternative. People are 25 percentage points more likely to plead guilty when faced with the death penalty [3] - that's not justice seeking truth, that's fear-based coercion. Your "efficiency" argument is exactly what's wrong - we've prioritized speed over accuracy. The odds of receiving a plea offer that includes incarceration are almost 70% greater for Black people than white people [3]. When your "just" system systematically punishes people differently based on race, you've lost any moral authority. The American Bar Association - hardly a radical organization - concluded that plea bargaining "is often unjust, unfair and lacks transparency" [4]. Even the legal establishment recognizes this system has become a mockery of due process where constitutional rights are bargained away under duress.