This article is pretty much dead-on. Our laws have become more broad with absurdly high maximum penalties, and this extorts guilty pleas. For example, an internet merchant accused of failing to deliver 10 $200 orders could be charged with 10 counts of Wire Fraud and face a potential sentence of 300 years in prison (up to 30 years per count). Thus, when this hypothetical web merchant is offered a deal for 6 months, he will take it, regardless of whether he may have won at trial or not.

The system is designed to extort guilty pleas. The statistics are pretty straightforward: if you are standing in court facing charges, you've already lost. You just may not know it yet.