plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is unjust?

Question

why is it unjust?

examples?

Answer 1

I think it has great potential for abuse. A person who plea bargains for his testimony is not a very credible person to testify. If there is corroborating evidence to support the testimony that's one thing, but I'm sure that many a criminal has testified a certain way just to save their own asses.

"Accomplice plea agreements tend to produce unreliable testimony because they create an incentive for the accomplice to shift blame to the defendant or other co-conspirators."91 Accomplices' motivations to shift blame have been analyzed exhaustively by courts and academics under the hearsay exception for statements against penal interests codified in Federal Rule of Evidence 804(b)(3). This exception allows the prosecutor to admit into evidence a statement against the penal interests of the declarant at trial when the declarant is unavailable, the declarant had an understanding that the statement was against his or her penal interests, and a reasonable person would not have made the statement unless he or she believed it to be true.92 What is interesting about Rule 804(b)(3) is that courts often admit a declarant's statement inculpating a codefendant uttered by the declarant as part of a self-inculpatory narrative. The jurisprudence applying Rule 804(b)(3) in this fashion sheds substantial light on the motivation of a declarant-defendant to shift blame and make statements tending to subject another codefendant to criminal liability."


It can and has been argued that a plea bargain in exchange for testimony is no less corrupt than paying for testimony.

"A panel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals recently criticized the use of bargained-for testimony in United States v. Singleton. In Singleton I, Sonya Singleton appealed her narcotics conviction, arguing that the prosecution obtained crucial testimony by offering leniency to witnesses in violation of the federal antibribery statute codified at 18 U.S.C. § 201(c)(2).73 The antibribery statute states that "[w]hoever . . . directly or indirectly, gives, offers, or promises anything of value to any person, for . . . testimony . . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than two years, or both."74 Singleton's argument was unique and shocking because it questioned, with a seemingly clear congressional statute that supported her position, the "legality" of the ingrained and institutionalized method of inducing witnesses to testify."

[*pg 1344]

Answer 2

I don't think so. It is sometimes better to let the mouse go, to get the rat.

Answer 3

It isn't, sometimes you have to deal with the devil to get another more evil