Plea bargaining has always been an interesting subject of debate within the criminal justice paradigm.
Although it can be optional, plea bargaining is more than a simple adjunct to the judicial process; some would say the criminal justice system would suffer without it.
One of the most frequent justifications for plea bargaining is allowing prosecutors to utilize limited resources more efficiently in handling massive caseloads.
It opens the doors for defendants to confess to their offenses without avoiding responsibilities for their crimes.
On the other hand, those who oppose plea bargaining despise the potential abuse of the mechanism when defendants only plead guilty in exchange for lenient punishment.
A prominent case often cited as an example of how plea bargaining could be dangerously generous for criminals happened in Canada in 1993 when Karla Homolka, a proven serial rapist, and killer, confessed to a lesser crime of manslaughter and testified against her partner in crime, Paul Bernardo to avoid the harsh sentence.
In exchange for her cooperation, she received a lenient 12-year-sentence instead of lifetime imprisonment recommended for first-degree murders and aggravated sexual assault.
10 /10 In Love With A Rapist
Karla Homolka met with her future husband, Paul Bernardo, in 1987. She was 17-year-old and still in high school; he was a 23-year-old man looking for a career as an accountant.
They became engaged about two years later, on Christmas Eve 1989. Before the wedding in June 1991, Paul asked her fiancé whether she would have changed her mind if he had been a rapist.
Karla didn’t mind at all. She thought that a rapist’s husband was incredible.
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Paul couldn’t appreciate it much because Karla had lost her virginity before she met him. Karla was far from being a physically unattractive young woman, but she felt a little insecure over the matter.
During a conversation about it, Paul suggested he would like to take her sister’s virginity instead. Paul was talking about the 15-year-old Tammy Homolka.
Regardless of Karla’s reaction at the time, she soon crafted a method to fulfill her fiancé’s lust. Karla stole some anesthetic Halothane from the veterinarian clinic she worked at and planned to drug her sister when the day arrived.