Illinois Government Research no. 59 1985: Pleas without Bargaining: Guilty Pleas in the Felony Courts of Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania

It is widely agreed that the vast majority of convictions in criminal courts are the result of guilty pleas. There is also surprisingly little disagreement that most guilty pleas are a consequence of plea bargaining, of one form or another. Uncritical acceptance of the notion that guilty pleas are synonymous with bargaining has had several negative results. One of the most significant is that researchers overlook the outlines of two very different conceptions of the guilty plea process in answering the question: What makes the plea system work?published or submitted for publicatio