Every time a plea bargain is reached, there is a small chance (1 in 1000?) that we randomly select the case for review. The defendant is imprisoned as per the terms of the plea bargain, but then we also bring the case to trial (federally funding a defense).
If the review trial finds the defendant guilty of the charges they pled to, we say ‘okay, seems like the plea bargain was fair, the defendant would have been found guilty anyway’.
If the review trial finds the defendant innocent, we release them and publicize this fact. If multiple reviews under the same prosecutor exonerate the defendant, it starts to look like that prosecutor is threatening charges to coerce defendants into unfavorable plea bargains.
A 1 in 1000 chance means that the cost of this should not grow too excessive compared to existing costs of the legal system, but also means that a prosecutor who is habitually coercing defendants into taking unfavorable plea deals is very likely to get caught.
It seems to me like your proposed system is more gameable by influencing the people who do the review and who select which case to randomly review then the system I proposed.
Furthermore, it does have no direct impact on the decision making process of the prosecutor when pressing charges.
An alternative approach that feels less gameable:
Every time a plea bargain is reached, there is a small chance (1 in 1000?) that we randomly select the case for review. The defendant is imprisoned as per the terms of the plea bargain, but then we also bring the case to trial (federally funding a defense).
If the review trial finds the defendant guilty of the charges they pled to, we say ‘okay, seems like the plea bargain was fair, the defendant would have been found guilty anyway’.
If the review trial finds the defendant innocent, we release them and publicize this fact. If multiple reviews under the same prosecutor exonerate the defendant, it starts to look like that prosecutor is threatening charges to coerce defendants into unfavorable plea bargains.
A 1 in 1000 chance means that the cost of this should not grow too excessive compared to existing costs of the legal system, but also means that a prosecutor who is habitually coercing defendants into taking unfavorable plea deals is very likely to get caught.
It seems to me like your proposed system is more gameable by influencing the people who do the review and who select which case to randomly review then the system I proposed.
Furthermore, it does have no direct impact on the decision making process of the prosecutor when pressing charges.