>as for defense attorneys, plea bargaining offers (among other things,
>including going to trial with losing case and/or appearing to
>provide no service to their clients) them opportunity to handle more
>clients and make more money...
Criminal defense attorneys, most of them anyway, don't make tons of money because their clients,most of them, don't have a lot of money. I think a lot more would go to trial if the risks weren't so big, especially in federal cases. You're right plea bargaining has been around a long time, but in the last 20 years the pressure to cooperate, again especially in federal cases, has become greater than ever before. It's really been a kind of seismic shift and now the federal system is largely snitch driven. 20 or 30 years ago, a defense attorney would lose credibility if they represented someone who cooperated. No longer. You wouldn't be doing your job if you didn't explain the consequences of refusing to cooperate. How much this has trickled down to state cases I can't say.