Plea Bargaining And Social Justice

Although plea bargain is not new in the judicial system, it is, however, popularised in Nigeria by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The anti-graft agency used the plea bargain in handling some of its high-profile corruption cases.
Section 14(2) of the EFCC Act, states inter alia: “The Commission may compound any offence punishable under this Act by accepting such sums of money as it thinks fit, not exceeding the amount of the maximum fine to which that person would have been liable if he had been convicted of that offence.”
Plea bargain is “when someone agrees to admit in court that he/she is guilty of one crime, in exchange for not being charged with a more serious crime,’’ according to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.
Judging from the way the plea bargain has been handled in Nigeria, in contrast to the long prison sentences handed down to several first offenders, observers bemoan the perceptible double standard in the application of plea bargain.
The observers note that for instance, Ruth Aweto, the Provost of the Federal Cooperative College, Ibadan, and Adekanye Komolafe, the college’s Bursar, were recently sentenced to four years’ imprisonment each by an Oyo State High Court for mismanaging the institution’s funds.
Justice Moshood Abass did not give them an option of fine in the suit filed by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
The convicts between October 2005 and January 2006 inflated the institution’s budget to N7 million, instead of N3.7 million required to pay workers’ salaries.
In that particular case, plea bargain was never applied and the judge sentenced each of the two accused persons to four years’ imprisonment, instead of the five years’ maximum sentence because they were first offenders.
However, the situation was manifestly different in some high profile corruption cases involving Cecilia Ibru, former Managing Director of Oceanic Bank; Lucky Igbinedion, former governor of Edo State and most recently, Yakubu Yusuf of the Police Pension Office.
Billions of naira were involved in the cases but the accused persons benefitted from the munificence of plea bargain.
Mr Gabriel Egbule, a lawyer, argued that the plea bargain was inadvertently abetting corruption in the country.
“When politicians or top civil servants are charged to court for serious corruption cases, they automatically and conveniently enter into plea bargain. Such persons find it very convenient to plead guilty and enter into plea bargain that will guarantee them payment of some amount of money and forfeiture of some assets for which they are charged,’’ he said.
Sharing similar sentiments, Mr Abiodun Oni, a civil servant, said that plea bargain was some new encouraging corruption in the country.
“Many people steal large sums from government coffers because it is easier to bargain your sentence as you will have enough bargaining power but when you take little, you are definitely going to jail and you will still have to refund what you stole,’’ he said.
However, Mr Wilson Uwujarem, the Acting Head of Media and Publicity of the EFCC, stressed that the plea bargain option was not only for high profile corruption cases.
I think there is a misconception about plea bargain; the general impression is that plea bargain is only applicable to crime and corruption cases involving the politically exposed or specific cases, but this is not true.
What happens under plea bargain is that the suspect agrees to own up to the crime; once somebody says he is ready to plead guilty to a crime, the whole process then becomes easier.
First of all, he will save the time of the court and the money that would have been used to prosecute the case but you have to compensate him for not wasting your time or the time of the court.
So, instead of giving him the maximum punishment, if the case had gone through the normal process of prosecution in court, you have to reach an agreement to reduce the punishment as an incentive for agreeing to plead guilty.
However, plea bargain is not only applicable to big crimes, it cuts across all crimes.
“The major objective of criminal prosecution is to achieve conviction and plea bargain achieves that because the person pleads guilty and is convicted; once you are convicted, you become an ex-convict,’’ he said.
Uwuajarem, nonetheless, noted that plea bargain “gives a lot of discretion to judges and that is where the abuse can come in and not from the prosecution.’’
All the same, Mr Chidi Ezenwafor, a lawyer, said that the use of plea bargain in the country’s judicial system should be strengthened because it had some specific advantages.
“Plea bargain favours the ordinary man too as it reduces the possibility of detention during extensive pre-trial and trial processes; it offers the accused the opportunity of having a timely conclusion of his case and knowing what the punishment will be,’’ he said.
Ezenwafor, nonetheless, said that if plea bargain was codified, “it will create room for speedy trial of criminal cases and improve the efficiency of courts by having fewer cases to try.
“It also decreases the cost of legal representation and increases the chances of a reduced sentence,’’ he added.
Analysts maintain that while plea bargain should be strengthened to avoid flaws in its application, pragmatic efforts should be made to get rid of any form of partiality in its application.

Folarin writes for News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)