Plea Bargaining Is Alive and Well

The background and state of plea bargaining in the Ventura courts was done an injustice in your profile of Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury on March 17.

The article correctly reported that, in the early 1980s, dozens of criminal cases were dismissed “when the public defender took every misdemeanor case to trial to protest the district attorney’s no-plea-bargaining policy.”

Unfortunately, when it concluded that the district attorney “beat down the challenge from the public defender’s office,” history was revised. In fact, the district attorney lost the challenge from the public defender’s office: The district attorney’s office was refusing to plea bargain in misdemeanor cases. The judge hearing these cases was refusing to tell what sentence he would give to a defendant who pleaded guilty. Reacting to the no-plea-bargaining policy of both the district attorney and the court, the public defender advised each client to plead not guilty and go to trial, instead of wasting time by attempting a plea bargain.

The court became so jammed that 38 defendants could not be brought to trial because there were no courtrooms to try their cases, violating their constitutional right to a speedy trial.

When the public defender attempted to get these cases dismissed, as required by law, the court refused. But the appeals court, over the objection of the district attorney, ordered those cases dismissed. When the district attorney went to the California Supreme Court, he lost there also.

Since then, recognizing that the people of Ventura were not being served by allowing cases to be dismissed, deputy district attorneys regularly discuss cases with public defenders and other defense counsel. They either agree on a sentence in exchange for a plea, or the judge, after listening to both positions, tells what sentence he will give. The overwhelming number of misdemeanors in this county are settled short of trial by, perish the thought, plea bargaining.

This state of affairs hardly supports the conclusion that he “beat down the challenge from the public defender’s office.” It also tells us that plea bargaining not only exists but is a necessary component for criminal justice in Ventura County.

KENNETH I. CLAYMAN

Ventura County public defender