Sadly, yes. Trials can be ruinously expensive even if you win. 97% of federal criminal prosecutions end in plea bargaining [0]. Prosecutors often make offers that are coercive. Consider the Aaron Swartz case [1]. After his death the prosecutor released a statement saying that they would have recommended to the judge 6 months in jail. While they were trying to secure a plea bargain they said he faced up to 35 years in jail and a $1 million fine.
Quoted from the Forbes article:
> If Ortiz thought Swartz only deserved to spend 6 months in jail, why did she charge him with crimes carrying a maximum penalty of 50 years? It’s a common way of gaining leverage during plea bargaining. Had Swartz chosen to plead not guilty, the offer of six months in jail would have evaporated. Upon conviction, prosecutors likely would have sought the maximum penalty available under the law. And while the judge would have been unlikely to sentence him to the full 50 years, it’s not hard to imagine him being sentenced to 10 years.
> In this hypothetical scenario, those 10 years in prison would, practically speaking, have consisted of six months for his original crime (the sentence Ortiz actually thought he deserved) plus a nine-and-a-half-year prison term for exercising his constitutional right to a trial.
[0]: http://www.thecrimereport.org/viewpoints/2014-01-how-plea-ba...
[1]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/01/17/aaron-swar...
Quoted from the Forbes article:
> If Ortiz thought Swartz only deserved to spend 6 months in jail, why did she charge him with crimes carrying a maximum penalty of 50 years? It’s a common way of gaining leverage during plea bargaining. Had Swartz chosen to plead not guilty, the offer of six months in jail would have evaporated. Upon conviction, prosecutors likely would have sought the maximum penalty available under the law. And while the judge would have been unlikely to sentence him to the full 50 years, it’s not hard to imagine him being sentenced to 10 years.
> In this hypothetical scenario, those 10 years in prison would, practically speaking, have consisted of six months for his original crime (the sentence Ortiz actually thought he deserved) plus a nine-and-a-half-year prison term for exercising his constitutional right to a trial.
[0]: http://www.thecrimereport.org/viewpoints/2014-01-how-plea-ba...
[1]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/01/17/aaron-swar...