I've seen it argued mostly in relation to drug charges. Essentially, when faced with charges with a potential penalty in the decades and offered the option to p

I've seen it argued mostly in relation to drug charges. Essentially, when faced with charges with a potential penalty in the decades and offered the option to plea guilty for a sentence orders of magnitude more lenient, nearly everyone will plea rather than fight their case, even if they have a strong case. Unless they know with absolute certainty that they will win, it makes more sense to take a slap on the wrist than to risk losing your life as you know it. Then there's the information asymmetry, where you don't have enough information to know if you have a guaranteed case, and aren't given the opportunity to find out before the plea bargain is taken away. So, essentially, instead of a court determining your guilt based on evidence, you have a game theory scenario what forces you into a guilty plea with no regard for the evidence. I would expect that a savvy financial type who can afford to pay a competent lawyer would be significantly less impacted by this phenomenon (if at all) than the typical person charged with a drug possession offense represented by a public defender who has too many clients to properly serve each one. Really, it seems to me that the issue isn't necessarily with plea bargains in general so much as with plea bargains with massive differentials to the original charges.