There were times where the crown, or otherwise known as King and Queen of England, could simply accuse a person of a crime and there was little that person could do to defend against it. In transitioning from that type of practice of conviction, the adversarial system was founded; which is actually the system that the United States practices today. Dammer and Albanese describe the adversarial system as a game in which two sides (the prosecution and the defense) are trying to win, while a neutral party (the judge) determines whether they are following the rules, and then a jury proclaims the winner (Dammer and Albanese, 2014, p. 127). Today, when a crime is committed, depending on the seriousness of a crime, certain steps are taken. The first being that an investigation is launched and through that investigations, evidence is gathered. Once the police feel that they have collected enough evidence to prove a certain person or persons committed the crime, the evidence is taken to a prosecutor who decides whether or not to arrest the individual. Then, when the offender is arrested for a crime, they are afforded certain rights such as the right to counsel, right to remain silent, right to trial by jury, and right to bail. Not all cases make it to trial. More specifically, most cases are plead out through the practice of plea bargaining. Plea bargaining is when an offender agrees to plead guilty in exchange of a lesser sentence. Plea bargaining is a common practice in the United States criminal justice system for many reasons. More specifically, the benefits of plea bargaining can be described as follows:
Defendants can avoid the time and cost of defending themselves at trial, the risk of harsher punishment, and the publicity a trial could involve; The prosecution saves the time and expense of a lengthy trial; Both sides are spared the uncertainty of going to trial; The court