Bureaucratic Justice, law homework help

Introduction

The ideal of the justice system is that two advocates of comparable ability will engage in a pursuit of truth, guided by a neutral judge within legal and procedural parameters. Actual practices in our justice system may be quite different. Blumberg refers to the practice of law as a confidence game because the prosecutor and the defense attorney conspire to appear as something they are not—adversaries in a do-or-die situation (Pollock, 2017). Another perspective describes our courts as administering bureaucratic justice—in which each case is treated as one of many; the actors merely follow the rules and walk through the steps, and the goal is efficiency.

For this discussion, assume you are a district attorney prosecuting a burglary case. The defendant is willing to plead guilty in return for a sentence of probation, and you feel that this is a fair punishment. However, the victims are upset and want to see the offender receive prison time. They insist that you try the case. What should you do?