The Way research packet. Built 2026-10-28. Online version: https://michiinstitute.com/cases/plea-bargaining.html

The Observatory · Case 52 · Rights · 1970 to 2024

Plea bargaining (United States, 1970 to 2024)

Not yet reviewed by a person. This page was researched and written with the help of AI tools. Every key claim is labeled by evidence status near the end, but no person has checked the sources yet. Treat it as a draft.
No one has verified this page yet. No verifier is recorded.
Sources checked 2026-10-25. Preliminary research, not a final verdict.

In this packet
1. Review status · 2. The article · 3. Sources and their details · 4. Every link used · 5. Revision history · 6. How to cite

1. Review status

Status: Not yet reviewed by a person. This page was researched and written with the help of AI tools. Every key claim is labeled by evidence status near the end, but no person has checked the sources yet. Treat it as a draft.
Verified by: No one has verified this page yet. No verifier is recorded.
Sources checked: 2026-10-25
Review history: https://michiinstitute.com/members/reviews.html?case=plea-bargaining
Packet built: 2026-10-28

2. The article

About 97 percent of federal and 94 percent of state convictions come from guilty pleas, the Supreme Court has called plea bargaining legitimate and then regulated it through defense counsel, and critics and defenders still disagree about whether sentences after trial amount to a penalty.

In brief

In fiscal year 2024, 97.2 percent of federal cases ended in a guilty plea, and a Supreme Court opinion in 2012 noted that about 94 percent of state convictions did as well. The Court called plea bargaining "an essential component of the administration of justice" in 1971 and, in 2012, wrote that it "is the criminal justice system." It has treated defense counsel's advice about offers as protected by the Sixth Amendment, in two 5 to 4 decisions. In a 2006 state sample, trial convictions drew average prison terms of 100 months and pleas 47 months, though the groups were not matched for offense. Defense groups call the gap a trial penalty and ask for guideline changes. Defenders say that a reduction for accepting responsibility and saving the court's time is lawful and, as the Court said, advantageous to both sides. The record shows that most outcomes are set in private talks under rules made largely by courts, and the data cannot yet say how much of the gap is a penalty.

The record

How common pleas are

Measure	Figure	Source
Federal cases, FY2024: guilty plea	97.2%	U.S. Sentencing Commission, Sourcebook 2024, Figure 5
Federal cases, FY2024: trial	2.8% (of 61,678 cases)	same
Federal convictions by plea, FY2022	about 97.5%	NACDL coalition letter to USSC, Nov. 17, 2023 (secondary)
Federal convictions by plea, FY2021	98.3%	same (secondary)
State felony convictions, 2006: guilty plea	94% (trial 6%: jury 4%, bench 2%)	BJS, Felony Sentences in State Courts, 2006, Table 4.1
Pleas as share of convictions cited by the Court, 2012	97% federal, 94% state	Missouri v. Frye

Notes: FY2024 Figure 5 is a share of cases, FY2021 and FY2022 are shares of convictions, so the figures are close but not the same measure. Sources: USSC Sourcebook 2024, Figure 5; BJS, Felony Sentences in State Courts, 2006; Frye. All opened. The Sentencing Commission page for the Sourcebook gave the 61,678 case count but not plea shares; those came from Figure 5, whose text we matched to categories by position.

What the Supreme Court has said

| Date | Case | Holding and key language | Vote | |---|---|---| | 1970 | Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742 | A guilty plea is not invalid merely because it was entered to avoid a possible death sentence under the Federal Kidnaping Act. A plea is "a grave and solemn act to be accepted only with care and discernment." The Court described a "mutuality of advantage" in plea bargaining: defendants reduce exposure, and the State saves resources. It declined to hold a plea compelled "whenever motivated by" a desire for a lesser penalty. Justice White wrote. | Vote not stated on the page we opened | | 1971 | Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257 | Plea bargaining is "an essential component of the administration of justice." When a plea rests significantly on a prosecutor's promise, "such promise must be fulfilled." The prosecutor had promised no sentence recommendation; a successor urged the maximum one-year term. Burger wrote; Douglas concurred; Marshall, with two others, concurred in part and dissented in part. | Count not stated | | 1978 | Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357 | No due process violation when a prosecutor, in plea talks, carries out a threat to bring more serious charges the defendant is plainly subject to. The defendant faced 2 to 10 years on an $88.30 forged instrument; he refused a five-year offer and received a life sentence under the habitual criminal law. The majority saw "no such element of punishment or retaliation" so long as the accused is free to accept or reject. Blackmun dissented: "Prosecutorial vindictiveness in any context is still prosecutorial vindictiveness." | 5 to 4 (Stewart) | | 2012 | Missouri v. Frye | Defense counsel's failure to tell a client of a formal plea offer can be ineffective assistance. The offer was a misdemeanor plea with a 90-day recommendation; it lapsed, and the client later received three years. The Court: plea bargaining "is the criminal justice system." (The Court was quoting a law review article.) | 5 to 4 (Kennedy; Scalia dissenting) | | 2012 | Lafler v. Cooper | When bad advice leads a defendant to reject a plea and go to trial, he must show a reasonable probability the plea would have been offered and accepted and that the result would have been less severe. Offer: 51 to 85 months. Trial result: 185 to 360 months. Remedy: the State must reoffer the plea, and the trial court has discretion. Scalia dissented, calling the remedy "unheard-of in American jurisprudence" and saying it creates a new field of "plea-bargaining law." | 5 to 4 (Kennedy) |

Sources: Cornell LII texts of Brady, Santobello, Bordenkircher, Frye and Lafler; all opened.

Sentence gaps between plea and trial

In the BJS 2006 state data, mean total incarceration was 29 months for guilty pleas and 78 months for trial convictions; mean prison sentences were 47 months (plea) and 100 months (trial). Means exclude death and life sentences. The table does not hold offense type or criminal history constant, so it cannot isolate a "penalty." (BJS, 2006; opened)
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) 2018 report, as quoted in a 2023 coalition letter, found that for most offense categories "the average trial sentence in the federal system is three times higher than a plea sentence," and up to eight times for some crimes. We did not open the report; we read the letter only. The letter was signed by NACDL, the ACLU, Americans for Prosperity, FAMM, Right on Crime and The Sentencing Project, among others. (Coalition letter to USSC, Nov. 17, 2023; opened)
The letter asks the Commission to let courts give a third acceptance-of-responsibility point after trial in the interests of justice and without a government motion (USSG 3E1.1(b)), to clarify that the obstruction adjustment (3C1.1) does not apply solely because a defendant testified, and to bar use of acquitted conduct. We did not open the Guidelines text.

Wrongful convictions and pleas

The National Registry of Exonerations lists 3,867 exonerations since 1989. The Registry's guilty-pleas page, "Innocents Who Plead Guilty" (Nov. 24, 2015), reports that 15 percent of known exonerees pleaded guilty (261 of 1,702 at that time). A 2023 NACDL letter gives 18 percent; we could not match it to a Registry source, so we use the Registry's figure. (National Registry of Exonerations; opened)
Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York wrote in 2014 that the system is "almost exclusively a system of plea bargaining" and cited criminologists who estimate that 2 to 8 percent of convicted felons who plead guilty are innocent (as reported in a Marshall Project republication that also carries a judicial reply). (Marshall Project, Dec. 26, 2014; opened) The estimate is contested and we did not trace its source.

What this case shows

Most people never reach the public part of the system. With 97.2 percent of federal cases ending in a plea, a jury sees about 3 in 100. The public sees sentencing and charges; the offer, the deadline and the alternative charge sit in private talks. (USSC)
The rules were set by courts, not legislatures. Brady, Santobello and Bordenkircher are Supreme Court decisions; no statute in our sources defines plea bargaining. In 2012 two 5 to 4 decisions said defense counsel's advice during plea talks is covered by the Sixth Amendment. (Cornell LII)
A visible gap, an unsettled cause. State and federal figures show much higher average sentences after trial. The causes are disputed: offense seriousness, record and cooperation also differ. The coalition's proposed fixes (third acceptance point, limits on obstruction and acquitted-conduct enhancements) are specific and checkable. (BJS; NACDL letter)
Those with less counsel have less leverage. Frye and Lafler involved lawyers who failed in advising clients on offers; both turned on a lawyer's conduct, not on a defendant's choice. Those without effective counsel were therefore the people the Court had to protect. We found no data on how often this occurs. (Cornell LII)
Both sides accept that few cases can be tried. A Tulane philosophy professor writing in a 2015 reply to Rakoff estimates trying every case would take six or seven times as many judges; critics and defenders disagree about whether that is a reason to keep bargaining or to shorten trials. (NYRB exchange, opened)

The strongest objections, and our answers

Objection: Pleas are voluntary bargains that benefit both sides. The Court in Brady described "mutuality of advantage." Robert Scott and William Stuntz (Yale Law Journal, 1992) wrote that most scholars condemn plea bargaining yet courts and participants accept it, and that contract theory is a natural way to regulate it. Mitigation: We report this as the Court's and a leading scholarly defense. We did not read the full article, only an abstract.
Objection: There is no "trial penalty"; there is a discount for accepting responsibility and saving resources. Brady supports the idea that defendants who plead receive a reduction in exchange for saved cost. Bordenkircher held that carrying out a threatened charge is not punishment for exercising a right when the defendant is free to refuse. Mitigation: We state both holdings. The dispute is whether the gap in outcomes is a discount or a penalty, and the evidence we opened cannot separate them.
Objection: The averages compare different cases. Correct. The BJS table does not control for offense or record, and the NACDL ratio comes from a defense group's analysis of Sentencing Commission data. Mitigation: We say so and show the figures as raw means and as claims.
Objection: Abolition would clog courts and leave the innocent worse off. The reply by Bruce Brower cites caseloads; Stephen Schulhofer, an abolitionist scholar, disputes the claim that abolition would harm the innocent and says it would improve both justice and efficiency (abstract only). Mitigation: We show both sides and make no claim about which is right.
Objection: A single high-profile case (Bordenkircher) or a judge's view (Rakoff) is not the system. Mitigation: Correct. Rakoff's 2 to 8 percent is an estimate he attributes to criminologists. We label it unverified.

Open questions: what would change our minds

How much of the plea-trial sentence gap remains after matching for offense, criminal history and cooperation? A study using Sentencing Commission microdata would decide this; we did not open one.
The NACDL 2018 report itself and its method. The page was unreachable; we read only a later letter.
The Registry's share of exonerees who pleaded guilty (15 percent) is from 2015; a current figure was not checked.
Whether the 2 to 8 percent innocent-plea estimate has a traceable empirical source.
The Sentencing Guidelines text for 3E1.1 and 3C1.1 was not opened.
Vote counts in Brady and Santobello: not shown on the pages we opened.
State practice after Frye and Lafler (how many offers are put on the record) not examined.
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 and the Sentencing Reform Act's treatment of plea agreements: not opened.
Whether defenders of prosecutorial practice (for example the National District Attorneys Association) have a published response; we searched but did not open one.

Sources

Title	Publisher	URL	Supports	Opened?
Sourcebook FY2024, Figure 5	U.S. Sentencing Commission	https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2024/Figure05.pdf	97.2% plea, 2.8% trial	Yes
Felony Sentences in State Courts, 2006	BJS	https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fssc06st.pdf	94% plea; mean sentences	Yes
Brady v. United States (1970)	Cornell LII	https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/397/742	Voluntariness, "mutuality of advantage"	Yes
Santobello v. New York (1971)	Cornell LII	https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/404/257	Promises must be kept	Yes
Bordenkircher v. Hayes (1978)	Cornell LII	https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/434/357	Charging threats in plea talks	Yes
Missouri v. Frye (2012)	Cornell LII	https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/10-444	Counsel and lapsed offers	Yes
Lafler v. Cooper (2012)	Cornell LII	https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/10-209	Counsel and rejected offers	Yes
Coalition letter to the Sentencing Commission (Nov. 17, 2023)	NACDL and others	https://www.nacdl.org/getattachment/8da329dc-1750-4262-812a-97e68998f779/coalition-letter-to-ussc-on-the-trial-penalty-as-a-priority-11172023.pdf	Trial penalty claim, proposed fixes	Yes
Plea-bargaining and the innocent (Dec. 26, 2014)	The Marshall Project	https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/12/26/plea-bargaining-and-the-innocent	Rakoff argument, 2 to 8% estimate, reply	Yes
Why Innocent People Plead Guilty: an exchange (Jan. 8, 2015)	New York Review of Books	https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/01/08/why-innocent-plead-guilty-exchange/	Reader replies, caseload argument	Yes
Plea Bargaining as a Social Contract (Scott and Stuntz), Yale L.J. 101 (1992)	Columbia Law School repository	https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/317/	Contract view	Abstract only
Plea Bargaining as Disaster (Schulhofer)	NYU Law	https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1391	Abolition argument	Abstract only
National Registry of Exonerations	University of Michigan and partners	https://exonerationregistry.org/	3,867 exonerations	Yes, home page
NACDL trial penalty report (2018)	NACDL	https://www.nacdl.org	3x claim	No, fetch failed
Sentencing Commission Guidelines 3E1.1	USSC and Cornell LII	https://www.law.cornell.edu/guidelines/ussg/3E1.1	Acceptance of responsibility	No, fetch failed

Evidence status and correction history

Key claims

Claim	Status	Source
97.2% of federal cases in FY2024 ended in a guilty plea, 2.8% in trial (61,678 cases)	Verified (primary source opened)	USSC Figure 5
94% of 2006 state felony convictions were guilty pleas	Verified (primary source opened)	BJS 2006
Mean state prison sentence 47 months (plea) versus 100 months (trial), 2006	Verified (primary source opened)	BJS 2006
Mean total incarceration 29 months (plea) versus 78 months (trial), 2006	Verified (primary source opened)	BJS 2006
Frye cites 97% federal and 94% state convictions by plea	Verified (primary source opened)	Cornell LII
Brady: plea not invalid merely because it avoided a possible death sentence; "mutuality of advantage"	Verified (primary source opened)	Cornell LII
Santobello: plea bargaining "an essential component of the administration of justice"; promise must be fulfilled	Verified (primary source opened)	Cornell LII
Bordenkircher 5 to 4; $88.30; five-year offer; life sentence	Verified (primary source opened)	Cornell LII
Frye 5 to 4 (Kennedy; Scalia dissent); Lafler 5 to 4; offer 51 to 85 months, trial 185 to 360 months	Verified (primary source opened)	Cornell LII
Federal trial sentence averages three times a plea sentence (up to eight times)	Verified (secondary only)	NACDL coalition letter; original report not opened
97.5% of federal convictions by plea in FY2022; 98.3% in FY2021	Verified (secondary only)	NACDL coalition letter
2 to 8 percent of convicted felons who plead guilty are innocent	Unverified (not confirmed)	Cited by Rakoff via Marshall Project; estimate not traced
15 percent of known exonerees pleaded guilty (261 of 1,702, as of Nov. 2015)	Verified (primary source opened)	Registry, Innocents Who Plead Guilty; the 2023 NACDL letter says 18 percent, not matched
Registry lists 3,867 exonerations	Verified (primary source opened)	exonerationregistry.org
Trying every case would need six or seven times as many judges	Unverified (not confirmed)	One reader's estimate in NYRB exchange
Scott and Stuntz (1992) argue contract theory suits regulating plea bargains; Schulhofer favors abolition	Verified (secondary only)	Abstracts
Vote in Brady and Santobello	Unverified (not confirmed)	Not on pages opened

Correction history

Date	Change	Reason
2026-10-25	First publication	New case
2026-10-25	Used the Court's actual Frye language, "is the criminal justice system," not "it is, for most defendants, the criminal justice system"	A common paraphrase gives the longer phrasing; the text we opened reads: "It is not some adjunct to the criminal justice system; it is the criminal justice system" (a quotation from an article). The longer phrasing does not appear.

Found an error or a better source? We keep every correction on the record with its date and reason. Nothing here is quietly rewritten.

3. Sources and their details

One entry per source in the page's Sources table. "Checked" is the date the page says its sources were checked. A Wayback link and SHA-256 appear only where a snapshot has been recorded.

1. Sourcebook FY2024, Figure 5

Publisher: U.S. Sentencing Commission
Date: not stated in the title; see the source
URL: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2024/Figure05.pdf
Supports: 97.2% plea, 2.8% trial
Opened by us: Yes
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

2. Felony Sentences in State Courts, 2006

Publisher: BJS
Date: 2006
URL: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fssc06st.pdf
Supports: 94% plea; mean sentences
Opened by us: Yes
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

3. Brady v. United States (1970)

Publisher: Cornell LII
Date: 1970
URL: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/397/742
Supports: Voluntariness, "mutuality of advantage"
Opened by us: Yes
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

4. Santobello v. New York (1971)

Publisher: Cornell LII
Date: 1971
URL: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/404/257
Supports: Promises must be kept
Opened by us: Yes
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

5. Bordenkircher v. Hayes (1978)

Publisher: Cornell LII
Date: 1978
URL: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/434/357
Supports: Charging threats in plea talks
Opened by us: Yes
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

6. Missouri v. Frye (2012)

Publisher: Cornell LII
Date: 2012
URL: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/10-444
Supports: Counsel and lapsed offers
Opened by us: Yes
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

7. Lafler v. Cooper (2012)

Publisher: Cornell LII
Date: 2012
URL: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/10-209
Supports: Counsel and rejected offers
Opened by us: Yes
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

8. Coalition letter to the Sentencing Commission (Nov. 17, 2023)

Publisher: NACDL and others
Date: 2023
URL: https://www.nacdl.org/getattachment/8da329dc-1750-4262-812a-97e68998f779/coalition-letter-to-ussc-on-the-trial-penalty-as-a-priority-11172023.pdf
Supports: Trial penalty claim, proposed fixes
Opened by us: Yes
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

9. Plea-bargaining and the innocent (Dec. 26, 2014)

Publisher: The Marshall Project
Date: 2014
URL: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/12/26/plea-bargaining-and-the-innocent
Supports: Rakoff argument, 2 to 8% estimate, reply
Opened by us: Yes
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

10. Why Innocent People Plead Guilty: an exchange (Jan. 8, 2015)

Publisher: New York Review of Books
Date: 2015
URL: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/01/08/why-innocent-plead-guilty-exchange/
Supports: Reader replies, caseload argument
Opened by us: Yes
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

11. Plea Bargaining as a Social Contract (Scott and Stuntz), Yale L.J. 101 (1992)

Publisher: Columbia Law School repository
Date: 1992
URL: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/317/
Supports: Contract view
Opened by us: Abstract only
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

12. Plea Bargaining as Disaster (Schulhofer)

Publisher: NYU Law
Date: not stated in the title; see the source
URL: https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1391
Supports: Abolition argument
Opened by us: Abstract only
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

13. National Registry of Exonerations

Publisher: University of Michigan and partners
Date: not stated in the title; see the source
URL: https://exonerationregistry.org/
Supports: 3,867 exonerations
Opened by us: Yes, home page
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

14. NACDL trial penalty report (2018)

Publisher: NACDL
Date: 2018
URL: https://www.nacdl.org
Supports: 3x claim
Opened by us: No, fetch failed
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

15. Sentencing Commission Guidelines 3E1.1

Publisher: USSC and Cornell LII
Date: not stated in the title; see the source
URL: https://www.law.cornell.edu/guidelines/ussg/3E1.1
Supports: Acceptance of responsibility
Opened by us: No, fetch failed
Checked: 2026-10-25
Snapshot: No snapshot or SHA-256 recorded in this packet yet.

4. Every link used in the article

Review history
https://michiinstitute.com/members/reviews.html?case=plea-bargaining
U.S. Sentencing Commission, Sourcebook 2024, Figure 5
https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2024/Figure05.pdf
NACDL coalition letter to USSC, Nov. 17, 2023
https://www.nacdl.org/getattachment/8da329dc-1750-4262-812a-97e68998f779/coalition-letter-to-ussc-on-the-trial-penalty-as-a-priority-11172023.pdf
BJS, Felony Sentences in State Courts, 2006
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fssc06st.pdf
Frye
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/10-444
Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/397/742
Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/404/257
Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/434/357
Lafler v. Cooper
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/10-209
National Registry of Exonerations
https://exonerationregistry.org/guilty-pleas
Marshall Project, Dec. 26, 2014
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/12/26/plea-bargaining-and-the-innocent
NYRB exchange
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/01/08/why-innocent-plead-guilty-exchange/
Yale Law Journal, 1992
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/317/
Stephen Schulhofer
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1391
https://exonerationregistry.org/
https://exonerationregistry.org/
https://www.nacdl.org
https://www.nacdl.org
https://www.law.cornell.edu/guidelines/ussg/3E1.1
https://www.law.cornell.edu/guidelines/ussg/3E1.1

5. Revision history

First published (earliest change on record): 2026-10-25.

Corrections on the page

Date	Change	Reason
2026-10-25	First publication	New case
2026-10-25	Used the Court's actual Frye language, "is the criminal justice system," not "it is, for most defendants, the criminal justice system"	A common paraphrase gives the longer phrasing; the text we opened reads: "It is not some adjunct to the criminal justice system; it is the criminal justice system" (a quotation from an article). The longer phrasing does not appear.

Change log for the page

2026-10-28: Visual follow-up: "On this page" list above the bubbles, no layout jumps, faster Submit animation
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2026-10-28: Fix styling on case, Government and case-study pages after the move
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2026-10-28: Keep the AI label full width on pages whose main area is a grid
2026-10-28: Pull a Thread: Save to notes, unverified flags, source checks, ballot accordion (0045)
2026-10-28: Label AI-written pages with a review status, and let reviewers change it (0044)
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2026-10-28: Pull a Thread, round 2: preliminary answer for every request, grants fix, and the floating buttons (0036, 0037)
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2026-10-27: Move the How government works entry from Research to Civics & History
2026-10-27: Case packets v2: cover, source cards, revision history; Email me updates moves into the report row
2026-10-27: Cases: fix wrong claims in TARP, plea bargaining and rural free delivery text, and claims file
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6. How to cite

The Way (Michi Institute). "Plea bargaining (United States, 1970 to 2024)." Case 52, The Observatory. Sources checked 2026-10-25. Packet built 2026-10-28. https://michiinstitute.com/cases/plea-bargaining.html

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