Law Commons^™

The State (Never) Rests: How Excessive Prosecutor Caseloads Harm Criminal Defendants, Adam M. Gershowitz, Laura R. Killinger

Laura R. Killinger

No abstract provided.

Attorney Competence In An Age Of Plea Bargaining And Econometrics, Jeffrey Bellin

Jeffrey Bellin

This Essay explores the concept of attorney competence in a criminal justice system dominated by plea bargaining. It focuses, in particular, on the results of a widely-reported empirical study of Philadelphia murder cases that found “vast” differences in legal outcomes based on the type of defense attorney assigned to the case. The first part of the Essay explores the implications of these empirical findings, which appear to stem from a counter-intuitive form of professional competence, persistence in convincing one’s client to plead guilty. The findings are particularly intriguing in light of the Supreme Court’s recent expansion of ineffective assistance of …

The State (Never) Rests: How Excessive Prosecutor Caseloads Harm Criminal Defendants, Adam M. Gershowitz, Laura R. Killinger

Adam M. Gershowitz

No abstract provided.

Post-Trial Pleas Bargaining In Capital Cases: Using Conditional Commutations To Remove Weak Cases From Death Row, Adam M. Gershowitz

Adam M. Gershowitz

Plea bargaining accounts for over ninety percent of criminal convictions and it dominates the American criminal justice system. Yet, once a defendant is convicted, bargaining almost completely disappears from the system. Even though years of litigation are on the horizon, there is nearly no bargaining in the appellate and habeas corpus process. There are two reasons for this. First, prosecutors and courts typically lack the power to alter a sentence that has already been imposed. Second, even if prosecutors had the authority to negotiate following a conviction, they would have little incentive to do so. Affirmance rates in ordinary criminal …

Consolidating Local Criminal Justice: Should Prosecutors Control The Jails?, Adam M. Gershowitz

Adam M. Gershowitz

No abstract provided.

An Informational Approach To The Mass Imprisonment Problem, Adam M. Gershowitz

Adam M. Gershowitz

The United States is plagued by the problem of mass imprisonment, with its prison population having risen by 500% in the last three decades. Because the overwhelming majority of criminal cases are resolved through plea bargaining, there is room for prosecutors to reduce mass imprisonment by exercising their wide discretion. At present, prosecutors likely do not give much consideration to the overcrowding of America 's jails and prisons when making their plea bargain offers. However, if prosecutors were regularly advised of such overcrowding they might offer marginally lower sentences across the board. For instance, a prosecutor who typically offers a …

Plead Guilty, Without Bargaining: Learning From China’S “Summary Procedure” Before Enacting Indonesia’S “Special Procedure” In Criminal Procedure., Choky Risda Ramadhan Mr.

Choky Risda Ramadhan Mr.

Because Indonesian courts are increasingly overrun with criminal cases, Indonesian lawmakers recently introduced a criminal procedure bill to include “special procedure” (jalur khusus), a procedure that allows defendants to plead guilty in order to increase efficiency. Unlike plea-bargaining in the U.S., this procedure more resembles China’s “summary procedure,” which is solely conducted by a judge, not negotiated independently by prosecutors and defendants. Before enacting the provision of special procedure, however, Indonesian lawmakers should learn from China’s successes and failures implementing summary procedure. While this procedure resulted in increased efficiency in China, it did not provide for defense counsel, and …

Uganda’S New Sentencing Guidelines: Introduction, Initial Assessment And Early Recommendations, David B. Dennison

David Brian Dennison

In April of 2013 the Chief Justice of Uganda issued the Constitution (Sentencing Guidelines for the Courts of (Practice). In doing so Uganda joined a movement of criminal justice reform that cuts across anglophone jurisdictions. This article includes a general background on the emergence of sentencing guidelines and the two primary structural approaches to sentencing guidelines design.

This article’s primary purpose is to offer a preliminary critical assessment of Uganda’s Sentencing Guidelines. An overview of key features in the Sentencing Guidelines serves as a prelude to the analytical content.

Uganda’s Sentencing Guidelines are a commendable effort. They are more than …

The Right To Defense Discovery In Plea Bargaining Fifty Years After Brady V. Maryland, Cynthia Alkon

Cynthia Alkon

No abstract provided.

Lafler's Remedial Uncertainty: Prosecutors Can Rest Easy, Darryl K. Brown

Darryl K. Brown

Some worry that the Supreme Court's decisions in Lafler v. Cooper and Frye v. Missouri create for defendants an unfair opportunity to manipulate the criminal process. They can plead guilty and, if dissatisfied with the sentence, void the conviction on with evidence that their counsel was ineffective and thereafter exercise their right to trial. This brief essay explains why these worries are unfounded and the manipulation scenario highly implausible.

The Innocence Effect, Oren Gazal-Ayal, Avishalom Tor

Oren Gazal-Ayal

Nearly all felony convictions—about 95%—follow guilty pleas, suggesting plea offers are very attractive compared to trials. Many scholars, in fact, argue plea bargains are too attractive and should be curtailed because they facilitate the wrongful conviction of innocents. Others contend plea offers only benefit innocent defendants, providing an alternative to the risk of a much harsher sentence at trial they may wish to avoid. Both detractors and supporters thus believe plea bargains often lead innocents to plead guilty. The two camps in the debate, moreover, also share the view that defendants’ culpability matters little for the rate of plea bargaining, …

Bargained Justice: Plea Bargaining's Innocence Problem And The Brady Safety-Valve, Lucian Dervan

Lucian E Dervan

If any number of attorneys were asked in 2004 whether Lea Fastow’s plea bargain in the Enron case was constitutional, the majority would respond with a simple word – Brady. Yet while the 1970 Supreme Court decision Brady v. United States authorized plea bargaining as a form of American justice, the case also contained a vital caveat that has been largely overlooked by scholars, practitioners, and courts for almost forty years. Brady contains a safety-valve that caps the amount of pressure that may be asserted against defendants by prohibiting prosecutors from offering incentives in return for guilty pleas that are …

Fairness And The Willingness To Accept Plea Bargain Offers, Oren Gazal-Ayal, Avishalom Tor, Stephen M. Garcia

Oren Gazal-Ayal

In contrast with the typical assumption in plea bargaining law and economics, we show defendants may reject plea offers based on fairness considerations. Specifically, offers where the sanction clearly appears excessive for the crime ("substantively unfair") and offers that appear inferior to those received by others in similar cases ("comparatively unfair") diminish defendants' wiliingness to accept plea offers (WTAP). Part 1 analyzes real-world data in Study 1 and reviews early experiments, all of which sugget substantive fairness impacts WTAP but do not control for important confounds. Part 2 therefore presents Studies 2-4 that confirm the independent impact of substantive fairness. …

Partial Ban On Plea Bargains, Oren Gazal

Oren Gazal-Ayal

The influence of the plea bargaining system on innocent defendants is fiercely debated. Many scholars call for a ban on plea bargaining, arguing that the practice coerces innocent defendants to plead guilty. Proponents of plea bargaining respond that even an innocent defendant is better off when he choose to plea bargain in order to assure a lenient result, if he concludes that the risk of wrongful trial conviction is too high. They claim that since plea bargaining is only an option, it cannot harm the defendant whether he is guilty or innocent. This paper argues that the both supporters and …

Plea Bargains Only For The Guilty, Oren Bar-Gill, Oren Gazal

Oren Gazal-Ayal

A major concern with plea bargains is that innocent defendants will be induced to plead guilty. This paper argues that the law can address this concern by providing prosecutors with incentives to select cases in which the probability of guilt is high. By restricting the permissible sentence reduction in a plea bargain the law can preclude plea bargains in cases where the probability of conviction is low (L cases). The prosecutor will therefore be forced to – (1) select fewer L cases and proceed to trial with these cases; or (2) select more cases with a higher probability of conviction …