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Pleading Innocents: Laboratory Evidence Of Plea Bargaining's Innocence Problem, Vanessa Edkins, Lucian E. Dervan
Pleading Innocents: Laboratory Evidence Of Plea Bargaining's Innocence Problem, Vanessa Edkins, Lucian E. Dervan
Law Faculty Scholarship
We investigated plea bargaining by making students actually guilty or innocent of a cheating offense and varying the sentence that they would face if found ‘guilty’ by a review board. As hypothesized, guilty students were more likely than innocent students to accept a plea deal (i.e., admit guilt and lose credit; akin to accepting a sentence of probation) (Chi-square=8.63, p<.01) but we did not find an effect of sentence severity. Innocent students, though not as likely to plead as guilty students, showed an overall preference (56% across conditions) for accepting a plea deal. Implications and future directions are discussed.
The Innocent Defendant’S Dilemma: An Innovative Empirical Study Of Plea Bargaining’S Innocence Problem, Lucian E. Dervan, Vanessa Edkins
The Innocent Defendant’S Dilemma: An Innovative Empirical Study Of Plea Bargaining’S Innocence Problem, Lucian E. Dervan, Vanessa Edkins
Law Faculty Scholarship
In 1989, Ada JoAnn Taylor was accused of murder and presented with stark options. If she pleaded guilty, she would be rewarded with a sentence of ten to forty years in prison. If, however, she proceeded to trial and was convicted, she would likely spend the rest of her life behind bars. Over a thousand miles away in Florida and more than twenty years later, a college student was accused of cheating and presented with her own incentives to admit wrongdoing and save the university the time and expense of proceeding before a disciplinary review board. Both women decided the …
Good Enough For Government Work: The Interpretation Of Positive Constitutional Rights In State Constitutions, Jeffrey Omar Usman
Good Enough For Government Work: The Interpretation Of Positive Constitutional Rights In State Constitutions, Jeffrey Omar Usman
Law Faculty Scholarship
The United States Supreme Court ruled in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989) and reaffirmed in Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005) that absent conditions of confinement the Due Process Clause imposes no affirmative obligations upon government to protect an individual’s life, liberty, or property. These decisions reflect the Supreme Court’s broader understanding of the United States Constitution as a guarantor of negative rights but devoid of assurance of positive rights. Like the constitutions of many other countries, state constitutions have charted a different course. Unlike their federal counterpart, state …