[jlkrusty]

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Good point. But I have two questions :

--Should a person be punished for being a bad negotiator? (Or employing a defence council who's a bad negotiator?)

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You or your counsel don't have to be a good negotiator to be offered a waiver of the death penalty. Prosecutors regularly offer waiving the death penalty, not because your counsel negotiated well, but because the prosecutor wants to alleviate his time, the court's time, and strain on the victim's family.

The offer of waiving the death penalty is primarily a tool for the prosecutor (and ergo we the public). If you talked with prosecutors, most (if not all of them) would agree that they have saved all sorts of time, money, and emotional drauma on behalf of the public by offering the accused murderer life in prison instead of the death penalty. I'm not saying this should swing someone's opinion in favor of the death penalty, but they should at least add this factor to thier list of considerations.

Still, I'll give you this point: our justice system is not always fair because those with better counsel are more likely to get good results than those without--e.g., O.J. Simpson. It's imperfect to say the least. However, regardless of whether we have the death penalty, this imbalance is always going to exist.

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--Having a disproportionately harsh penalty hanging Damocles' sword-like over the defendant's head tends to distort the fairness of the proceedings and the quest for justice & truth. (E.g. fearing the absolute worst, innocent people might plea bargain themselves into long jail terms.) True or False?

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This is a possibility, but does this play out in actual reality? There are several instances of people found guilty, and later exonerated with DNA evidence, but what about instances of someone admitting to a crime? Do we have many instances of people confessing because Damocles' sword was hanging over their head, and later they were found to be not guilty? There must be at least one example, but how often does this actually occur?

Anyhow, my main point is that we should be giving the plea bargaining factor some weighted consideration in favor of the death penalty. There might be factors as you are mentioning that offset the utility of this plea bargaining tool, but it still must be a consideration. That is, we should give at least some weight to the effect of saving the prosecution, the judge, and the victim's family countless hours of litigation. Perhaps this is not enough to swing one's opinion, but it ought to be considered nonetheless.