Ⅲ. Choose the proper words or expresions from the list below and fill in the blanks.

bars excuse convictions plead guilty chambers compromise private guilty plea defendants charges plea bargaining prosecutor jury trial trial innocent criminals acquitted evidence

Plea Bargaining and the Guilty Plea

It is a striking fact that trials are not the usual way a defendant's fate is decided. Most men and women behind ____1____ did not get there because a jury put them there. They got there because they ____2____ .In some part of the county, up to 90 percent of all ____3____ come about this way.

How does this happen? Why do defendants plead guilty? Sometimes they plead guilty out of shame, hopelessness, or remorse. But in the overwhelming majority of cases, the ____4____ is part of a“deal”—part of the practice is called“ ____5____ ”or“copping a plea. ”The ____6____ agrees to press for a lighter sentence, or to drop some ____7____ ,or to give defendant a break in some other way:this is in exchange for a guilty plea, which avoids trial by jury. ____8____ has pushed the ____9____ into a small corner of the criminal process. The big cases—the headline cases—still go before a jury:the trial of Patricia Hearst or of John Hinckley, who tried to kill President Reagan. Ordinary cases, like the case of our house burglar, are unlikely to go to a jury. And the jury's role has been steadily shrinking over the years.

Plea bargaining is controversial. Some people defend it. Most people arrested, they say, are guilty anyway. Why bother with a ____10____ ?Why waste public money? Plea bargaining is a ____11____ :both sides give a little, get a little. Trials take time; there is always the chance of some slipup. It is best（for both sides）to avoid it.

On the other hand, a growing number of people feel that plea bargaining is a disgrace.“Law and order”people think it shows too much softness toward ____12____ . Dangerous ____13____ “cop a plea”and slip through the nets. Others claim that the process is unfair to the ____14____ .One study claimed that up to one-third of the people who plead guilty would be ____15____ if they went to trial.

This is a startling conclusion. But it does not mean that these people were in fact ____16____ of the crime—only that they had a legal ____17____ or that the ____18____ was weak. In any event, plea bargaining makes a mockery of criminal process. It certainly does not fit our image of due process or our picture of the adversary system. In general, as Herbert Jacob has put it, in the criminal justice system today“the most important decisions are made in ____19____ —either in the prosecutor's office or in the judge's ____20____ .”Justice consists in the main of deals by lawyers in the back rooms or the courtroom corridors.