Nothing could be more premeditated than this

I was offered a choice between rolling the dice with a magistrate, where I'd almost certainly be found guilty of one minor charge and get a conviction on my record (which would prevent me from ever getting a USA work visa, etc...), and at worst go to prison for decades.

touching someone without causing injury

90-95% of cases do not go to trial and instead end in a plea bargain. I suppose you should be aware that if this were not the case then the alternative would be 20X more cases going to trial which would possibly result in people spending long periods in prison because they cannot afford bail and have to now wait behind all the other cases wanting to go to trial.

...That's the good side of (and good reason for) plea bargains. The ugly side are the ridiculous sentences. In the case mentioned, if the man had got 20 years instead of 50 years (or life), that would seem reasonable. But 7 years serving half is absolutely ridiculous, and there had been too many such deals. For instance in another crime program, a 50-50 complicit in first degree murder got just 8 years after plea (probably because she also ratted on her accomplice) while the other went to trial and got life (though she later committed suicide)

I disagree, I think that's atrocious.

I've always been against plea bargains as well as parole, because our justice system is supposed to rely on "everyone gets their chance in front of a jury". We need to hire way more judges, expand the legal system, and give everyone a trial. Most of those cases would be found not guilty, and we'd have way fewer people in our prisons if we did.

Also, I had to take a plea deal in a car accident. There were 2 fire trucks parked with their emergency lights on, and a cop was waving traffic. He waved me on, and as I passed the fire trucks, one pulled out and hit my right-side passenger door. The cop on scene apologized, and I never got a ticket, a week or so later I got a notice that the state was suing me for a hit and run (Even though I got out of the car, spoke with the cop and the fire truck driver, and the cop filed a report saying as much). My lawyer said to take the plea deal because it was only $400 and 2 points on my license for 1 year, at which point it would come off. The risk was I might go to jail on the hit and run, along with several other small charges.

So yes, they're pretty much extortion, and I think these frivolous lawsuits will end when they do.

90-95% of cases do not go to trial and instead end in a plea bargain. I suppose you should be aware that if this were not the case then the alternative would be 20X more cases going to trial which would possibly result in people spending long periods in prison because they cannot afford bail and have to now wait behind all the other cases wanting to go to trial.

The problem with pleading guilty, at least in the U.S., is that you lose the right to appeal. A conviction with a trial would allow for an innocent person to have their conviction overturned. Plea bargains disproportionately target people who cannot afford a good defense. Many of them are truly innocent, but feel they have no other option but to plead guilty. It is perversion of the justice system.

Except they're not. It's risk/reward for everyone.

I make a pretty good living, but I still settled with a plea deal. Why? I was risking months in jail, or a couple hundred $ fine (if I took a plea). Why would I pay a private lawyer $5k~ to fight the charge if I can plea for $400?

Cases like this should be thrown out based on merit, but instead they're used as a tax collection mechanism.

It would be good to keep criminals off the streets, but plea deals don't do that, as they would get convicted in a fair trial

It would be good to keep innocent people out of trouble, but plea deals don't do that, as it's more economical to just pay the plea than go to trial

They only serve to rush people through the process and extract more money (either in savings, or from otherwise frivolous charges). If the system was expanded to have enough judges/public defenders, bogus charges would be thrown out, people would get a fair trial, criminals would be locked up for longer. I'd gladly pay more in taxes for that.

Plea deals in the US are designed to avoid trial. The majority of these cases are where the evidence may not be strong enough to carry a verdict, but the defendant can be coerced into pleading guilty anyway.

Plea deal cannot be hold if the suspect is a danger to society and plea deal will damage the society in general. This did not contain purely the damaged side and the commiting side, but the general society security, omitting the fact that the damaged side is actualy dead and cannot plea deal. The prosecutor of the suspect has failed, as well as the judge with his sentence has failed. Sentences purpose is not punishing the suspect, but in first place doing a service to society to eliminate pathologic and damaging individuals by isolation. Also, the termine "corrected" or "correction facility" is nonsense.