This paper focuses on the narrow question whether prosecutorial or judicial negotiation of a reduced charge or sentence for a criminal defendant in exchange for a guilty plea renders the plea “involuntary.” I begin by clarifying the conditions under which choices in general are considered voluntary or coerced. In Part II, I measure the practice of plea bargaining against this general theory of voluntary choice. I argue that a negotiated guilty plea is not intrinsically involuntary but that many of the conditions commonly a part of plea bargaining may render it so. The negotiated plea can be defended from the charge of coercion only if these conditions can be, and are, eliminated. I also show that overt “threats” of prosecutorial or judicial reprisal are not the only way of coercing a guilty plea. Under certain conditions, apparent “offers” of leniency can be coercive as well.

The paper is a reply to two defenders of a reformed system of plea bargaining: Thomas Church and Conrad Brunk. At the broadest level, it is argued that plea bargaining is in a twofold conflict with the constitutive purposes of the liberal-democratic idea of a criminal justice system: the practice is not conducive to the punishment of the guilty in accordance with their deserts and it violates basic liberties, among them the right against self-incrimination and the right to the lowest reasonable sentence. It is argued that the value of the jury trial is insufficiently appreciated in Church's analysis. Brunk is criticized for failing to distinguish between two critical responses to plea bargaining: that the agreement made by the defendant should not be honored by the courts and that public officials act wrongfully in coercing such pleas.