Plea deals turn wheels of justice

Mark Douglas Hacking murdered his pregnant wife and dumped her body in the trash. Becky Lynn Peacock shot her husband to death during a fight in their kitchen. Roger Martin MacGuire gunned down his ex-wife and her unborn baby in the office where she worked.

All terrible crimes that produced criminal charges.

But instead of going through a trial with a jury, witnesses and evidence presented in court, all three cases end up with a legal resolution that has become a staple in American courts: plea bargains.

Hacking and MacGuire got prison terms, while Peacock's prison term was suspended, and she was ordered to serve a year in jail.

Plea agreements produce mixed reactions from victims: mostly resignation, sometimes satisfaction and, occasionally, outrage. Many prosecutors and defense attorneys say plea arrangements are essential.

"The system is really designed around plea dispositions," said Davis County Attorney Mel Wilson, noting that his office handled about 2,600 felony cases last year and nearly all were resolved through pleas. "If you tried every one of those cases, even if they averaged less than a day per case, you'd never get through them all. Plea dispositions are a necessary and important part of our system."

There are no solid figures for negotiated plea bargains nationwide. However, 95 percent of the felony convictions in state courts nationally were obtained through guilty pleas entered by the defendant, according to a 2000 report by the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics.

In Utah, prosecutors and defense attorneys, with support from their client, agree on what a plea agreement involves, and that often includes sentencing recommendations to the judge. Then it must be accepted by a judge before it is official. Prosecutors consult victims on what a plea agreement entails and consider their input, although victims do not have the ability to veto a plea.

While some crime victims breathe a sigh of relief at not having to go through a trial, others struggle with the idea that someone who commits a serious crime gets to cut any deal, no matter what the outcome.

When Elliott Rashad Harper earlier this year agreed to a plea bargain and went to prison for up to five years for his role in killing a man in Woods Cross, most of the victim's relatives seemed relieved the long-running murder case was over.

But at least one person found the plea agreement troubling.