What are the potential injuries to future defendants if a defendant waives his right to give inconsistent testimony at trial should the plea bargain fail?

I begin with the potential injuries to defendants. The defendant who waives his right to give inconsistent testimony at trial should the plea bargain prove fruitless seems to forfeit one "right" directly: the "right" to lie. By forfeiting his ability to provide inconsistent testimony at trial, the defendant has forsaken--or at least diminished--his "right" to lie at some stage of the prosecution. The defendant who forsakes this "right," of course, has sacrificed nothing, as no defendant has the "right" to provide false testimony. Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U.S. 157, 173, 106 S.Ct. 988, 997, 89 L.Ed.2d 123 (1986).

Another potential injury to future defendants--though not the defendant in this case--identified by the majority is that they may be compelled to forsake their "right" to plea bargain, if they find that the price of waiver is too high to pay. Such hypothetical defendants also sacrifice a "right" which they never possessed. See United States v. Wheat, 813 F.2d 1399, 1405 (9th Cir.1987) (holding that "there is no right to a plea bargain"), aff'd, 486 U.S. 153, 108 S.Ct. 1692, 100 L.Ed.2d 140 (1988). In return for this sacrifice, these defendants must stand trial. Where is the harm to a defendant who is "coerced" into going to trial? The most consistent criticism waged against plea bargaining is that defendants are often coerced into pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit. See generally Chaffin v. Stynchcombe, 412 U.S. 17, 30-31, 93 S.Ct. 1977, 1984-85, 36 L.Ed.2d 714 (1973) (discussing coercive potential of several common plea-bargaining tactics). The majority has turned this criticism on its head, by suggesting that the problem with waivers is that they will coerce defendants to forgo plea bargaining.