According to a 2019 study conducted by the Pew Research Center, of the 80,000 federal prosecutions initiated in 2018, just two percent of the cases went to trial. In the state system, 94 percent of criminal prosecutions were resolved through the plea bargaining process. People who have studied this aspect of the criminal justice system believe that too many suspects charged with a crime are coerced into pleading guilty. They are told that if convicted, with their criminal records, they could serve long prison sentences, but if they plead guilty, they might get probation or just a few months behind bars. So why take the chance? No one knows how many of these people were actually innocent.
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