blindmanbaldwin 's review for:

Pleading Out: How Plea Bargaining Creates a Permanent Criminal Class by Dan Canon

---

Class is the key word here. Canon explores the development of plea bargains through class analysis. The elites and status quo power could not accept liberalizing the jury box, so they instead opted to (de facto) get rid of it. Throughout the book, Canon pulls back to this being the same force that curtailed the American labor movement.

We've created a class of undesirables and untouchables, and we make them brand themselves as such. Then because we forced them into branding themselves, we deny them any appeals or rights. Forced into signing away your own soul.