The Overburdened Criminal Justice System:
How Constitutional Rights Are Undermined
By: Chaddrick Thomas
The American criminal justice system was designed with constitutional safeguards to protect the accused from unjust prosecution. Two of the most critical rights in this system are the right to a preliminary hearing and the right to a speedy trial. These rights serve as fundamental checks against wrongful prosecution and prolonged incarceration without due process. However, due to the overwhelming volume of cases, prosecutors and public defenders often work in tandem to pressure, coerce, and intimidate defendants into waiving these rights—undermining the very principles of justice.
The reality is that the system simply cannot function if too many people assert their constitutional rights. The sheer number of cases would cripple courts, overwhelm public defenders, and expose the inefficiencies of our legal process. Instead of addressing these structural issues, the system has evolved to suppress these rights through threats and coercion, ensuring that cases are resolved swiftly—often at the expense of justice.
Understanding the Right to a Preliminary Hearing
A preliminary hearing is a critical early stage in a felony case. It serves as a safeguard to prevent individuals from being held or prosecuted without sufficient evidence. During this hearing, a judge determines whether probable cause exists to move forward with the case. The defendant has the opportunity to:
• Challenge the prosecution’s evidence
• Cross-examine witnesses
• Present a defense (though this is rarely done at this stage)
The purpose of this hearing is to prevent baseless prosecutions and ensure that defendants are not dragged into lengthy legal battles without justification. However, in practice, many defendants are pressured into waiving this right—often under the threat that if they do not, prosecutors will refuse to offer plea deals.
The Right to a Speedy Trial and Its Importance
The right to a speedy trial, guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, ensures that a defendant is not subjected to indefinite legal limbo. This right is crucial because:
• It prevents prolonged pretrial incarceration
• It reduces the risk of lost evidence and fading witness memories
• It keeps the government accountable by preventing unnecessary delays
However, the criminal justice system frequently manipulates this right, particularly in cases involving habitual offender laws. Prosecutors may threaten defendants by saying:
“If you don’t waive your right to a speedy trial, we’ll file habitual offender charges against you, increasing your sentence drastically.”
This forces defendants to choose between their constitutional rights and potentially life-altering punishments—an impossible choice that undermines the very foundation of justice.
How Prosecutors and Public Defenders Work Together to Undermine These Rights
One of the most overlooked aspects of the criminal justice system is how prosecutors and public defenders work together—consciously or not—to persuade, pressure, and even coerce defendants into waiving their rights. Here’s how this process unfolds:
1. Prosecutors refuse plea deals unless the defendant waives the preliminary hearing.
• Defendants are told that if they demand a hearing, they will receive no leniency.
• This effectively eliminates the defendant’s ability to challenge weak cases at an early stage.
2. Prosecutors use habitual offender statutes as leverage.
• If a defendant demands a speedy trial, prosecutors may threaten enhanced sentencing under habitual offender laws.
• This creates a situation where the risk of exercising a constitutional right is too high for most defendants to bear.
3. Public defenders, overwhelmed with cases, encourage defendants to waive rights.
• Most public defenders carry hundreds of cases at a time and lack the resources to take each case to trial.
• Instead of fighting for their clients, they often pressure them into pleading guilty to avoid lengthy litigation.
• Many defendants are told that waiving these rights is in their “best interest” when, in reality, it is in the best interest of an overburdened legal system.
The System Cannot Handle Mass Resistance
If even 50% of defendants exercised their right to a preliminary hearing and a speedy trial, the entire system would collapse under its own weight. The reality is that our legal infrastructure was not designed to handle widespread assertion of constitutional rights.
Historically, in the 1980s, it was well known that simply declaring an intention to go to trial often resulted in prosecutors offering better plea deals. This was because the system could not afford to take every case to trial. Instead of fixing the inefficiencies, the modern system has evolved to prevent defendants from ever reaching that stage.
Prosecutors, judges, and public defenders now work within a framework designed to discourage trials at all costs. The result? A system that prioritizes speed and efficiency over fairness and due process.
The Consequences of a Broken System
The consequences of this systemic failure are dire:
• Wrongful convictions increase as defendants plead guilty to crimes they did not commit simply to avoid harsher penalties.
• The prison population swells with individuals who might have won their cases had they gone to trial.
• Trust in the justice system erodes, as people realize their rights exist in theory but not in practice.
The reality is that constitutional rights should not be privileges reserved for those with money or private attorneys. Yet, for the average defendant, asserting those rights comes at a steep cost—one they are often forced to avoid.
Conclusion: A System in Need of Reform
The criminal justice system is not equipped to handle the volume of cases it prosecutes, and instead of adapting, it has evolved to intimidate defendants into compliance.
By manipulating the right to a preliminary hearing and the right to a speedy trial, prosecutors and public defenders contribute to a system that prioritizes efficiency over justice. This needs to change. Until then, constitutional rights will remain a luxury rather than a guarantee, and justice will continue to be dictated not by fairness, but by what the system can afford to handle.