Plea bargaining exists in Germany as well (under the rubric of "confession agreements").

I think plea bargaining is a red herring. Plea bargains are a necessity: jarring as it is for us to consider this, most felony† defendants are in fact guilty, as a simple consequence of how policing works. It doesn't appear that way to us intuitively, because we only hear about the interesting cases.

That's not a defense of US criminal procedure! We have a terrible, back-breaking policy flaw: sentences are much too onerous, as a result of several decades of "war on crime" legislation from the 70's, 80's, and 90's.

† The word "felony" there is important.

Even if the numbers make guilt look more likely, we cannot create policy with the assumption of guilt. We subscribe to a principle of innocent until proven guilty, plain and simple.

This principle is an essential safeguard, critical for the preservation of order in a democracy.

As I have said before in this thread. Don't rob Peter to pay Paul. It is simply illogical and counter productive.

No doubt a functioning court system is also extremely critical.

We just need to think about it like a bug in the software. In the end it is up to social innovators to correct this deficiency. There is a solution to this problem.

EXTRA --

There is the argument that this does not apply to illegal combatants or immediate threats to national security. Obviously that is another problematic and complicated position that my have policy bleeding into this case.

P.S. > the nuance of your position is clear

It is also a budget thing. Trails are not free.

It is an unfortunate problem with the current judiciary system. Pleas do avoid trail and as I understand it when things go to trail the penalties are substantially harsher.

So in many ways it can become the best bet... even for an innocent person.