Courts don’t need to be automated. With enough laws and enough evidence, prosecutors will have sufficient leverage for plea bargains, which already make up the vast majority of criminal cases.
And the use of ML to assist bail / parole is aside from my point. Those are attempts to get a more accurate (potentially less biased) evaluation of already existing cases. I’m talking about the increase in cases.
Plea bargaining is a dangerous game IMO.. It incentivises a suspect to plead guilty because even if they're not they's a possibility to get a much higher sentence if the court thinks otherwise.
So people can be coerced into pleading guilty. I'm glad we don't have this system where I live.
It was considered unethical when the US was founded, but the role and ethics of public prosecutors have evolved in the past 200 years.
Also worth pointing out that local prosecutors are elected, so there are tons of perverted incentives in trying cases. When prosecutions get backlogged, voters get frustrated and will vote for change.
The point being that there are a limited number of human beings, including prosecutors, that can make the system work, even plea deals are rate-limited.
