Penn State International Law Review Volume 10 Article 5 Number 1 Dickinson Journal of International Law 9-1-1991 A Comparison of Guilty Plea Procedure in the United States and Germany Helen A. Haglich Follow this and additional works at: http://elibrary.law.psu.edu/psilr Part of the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, Criminal Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Haglich, Helen A. (1991) "A Comparison of Guilty Plea Procedure in the United States and Germany," Penn State International Law Review: Vol. 10: No. 1, Article 5. Available at: http://elibrary.law.psu.edu/psilr/vol10/iss1/5 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by Penn State Law eLibrary. It has been accepted for inclusion in Penn State International Law Review by an authorized administrator of Penn State Law eLibrary. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. A Comparison of Guilty Plea Procedure in the United States and Germany I. Introduction1 For a number of reasons plea bargaining has become a very im- portant part of United States criminal procedure. One of the most important reasons is economics; it would be prohibitively expensive to hold a full-scale trial for all those charged with a crime.2 Plea bargaining works because many defendants are willing to forego a criminal trial in exchange for a lesser sentence, and prosecutors are willing to offer a lesser sentence in order to secure a guilty plea while not expending as much time and effort as a trial would require. In fact, plea bargaining has become such an effective tool that an estimated 90% of criminal defendants who are convicted are done so by their own guilty pleas.3 In a study of United States Dis- trict Courts and Michigan Circuit Courts, defendants who insist on a jury trial receive a sentence that is longer by an average of twelve to forty-four months.4 Thus far, plea bargaining has been instrumental in saving tax- payers' money and in cutting down on the backlog that is common in courts across the nation.