Here I was, thinking the we wanted to eliminate the risk of an innocent man who accepts a plea bargain because he fears that he will lose a trial. That happens all the time, far more frequently than guilty men being released due to a mistrial.
Society is actively harmed when innocent men accept plea bargains and admit (falsely) to committing a crime. People lose their faith that the justice system actually protects them when their friends are all imprisoned despite having done nothing wrong. Take, for example, the widespread fear among the police of a public with lots of cameras -- it's not that the majority of cops are worried about their corruption being caught on camera (most cops are not corrupt), it's that they fear that a recording of their actions will be edited to make it appear that they were corrupt. Only someone who has lost their faith in the criminal justice system would engage in such an act, and such people have lost their faith because they keep seeing people go to prison without receiving a trial, regardless of guilt of innocence.
Society is actively harmed when innocent men accept plea bargains and admit (falsely) to committing a crime. People lose their faith that the justice system actually protects them when their friends are all imprisoned despite having done nothing wrong. Take, for example, the widespread fear among the police of a public with lots of cameras -- it's not that the majority of cops are worried about their corruption being caught on camera (most cops are not corrupt), it's that they fear that a recording of their actions will be edited to make it appear that they were corrupt. Only someone who has lost their faith in the criminal justice system would engage in such an act, and such people have lost their faith because they keep seeing people go to prison without receiving a trial, regardless of guilt of innocence.