Jury trials are becoming rarer in today’s criminal justice system, despite being mentioned multiple times in our Constitution. This is largely due to the immense weaponry prosecutors have in their arsenals by which they can coerce defendants to plead guilty, including rigid mandatory minimum sentences.

A new blog post from Mike Fox, a legal fellow in the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice, details how new bipartisan legislation, H.R. 9095, the Right to Trial Act, could remedy this issue, writing in part:

“The legislation amends federal sentencing law to require that judges explicitly review the entire history of plea negotiations. For the first time, a judge determining a post-trial sentence would be legally required to evaluate the original plea offers made by the government, as well as the sentences received by co-defendants who pleaded guilty. If the judge finds that the post-trial sentence is vastly disproportionate simply because the defendant forced the government to prove its case, the judge can reduce the sentence to close that gap.”

To speak with Fox further about the Right to Trial Act or the role of juries in our system, contact Christopher Tarvardian.