Indiana Republican Congresswoman Victoria Spartz and a few of her colleagues introduced the “Right to Trial Act.”

Spartz says this legislation would strengthen the constitutional right to trial and mitigate abuses of prosecutorial authority in our federal justice system.

Approximately 97% of defendants subject to federal charges plead guilty, up from nearly 85% in the early 1990s. Despite their constitutional right to trial, defendants face steep mandatory minimum sentences if they choose to exercise this right-driving defendants into one-sided plea negotiations.

Legislators say this legislation tries to eliminate “extreme disparities between sentences offered in plea deals and sentences given to those who went to trial.”