Re-reading United Staes v. Ruiz this morning, and I am reminded anew that the Supreme Court literally said it was not going to protect a defendant's constitutional right to discovery because that might make prosecutors plea bargain in fewer cases.

How the Court justified allowing the US Govt to force defendants to waive discovery rights in plea bargaining.

Apparently protecting something that is nowhere contemplated in the Constitution from change outweighs forcing people to waive actual constitutional rights.

Ugh --- you might need to click on the box in the previous tweet to see the actual excerpt from Ruiz.

Also re-read Bordenkircher v. Hayes, in which the Supreme Court literally admits that it has to allow prosecutors to threaten defendants with life in prison if they don't plead guilty, because otherwise it would have to declare plea bargaining unconstitutional.

The Bordenkircher Court had to decide whether to follow its own cases about not punishing people for exercising their legal rights and allowing coercive plea bargaining.

Wanna take a guess what they chose?

Anyway, the next time that someone tells you that prosecutors are to blame for coercive plea bargaining, please point them to Ruiz and Bordenkircher.

The Supreme Court does not get nearly enough blame for the utter disaster that is our modern criminal justice system.