Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

The Right To Plea Bargain With Competent Counsel After Cooper And Frye: Is The Supreme Court Making The Ordinary Criminal Process "Too Long, Too Expensive, And Unpredictable . . . In Pursuit Of Perfect Justice"?, Bruce A. Green

Duquesne Law Review

"[T]oo long, too expensive, and unpredictable." That is how Justice Scalia described "the ordinary criminal process" in a dissenting opinion joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas. Justice Scalia blamed the length, cost, and unpredictability of criminal proceedings not on the intrinsic nature of adjudication but on the constitutional jurisprudence underlying the criminal process, which he depicted as unnecessarily intricate and unduly burdensome. One might infer, given their understanding, that these Justices will not only interpret constitutional provisions narrowly in criminal cases but, given the chance, will trim back constitutional protections that they believe earlier decisions benightedly …