Law Commons^™

Inside The Black Box Of Prosecutor Discretion, Megan Wright, Shima Baradaran Baughman, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

In their charging and bargaining decisions, prosecutors have unparalleled and nearly-unchecked discretion that leads to incarceration or freedom for millions of Americans each year. More than courts, legislators, or any other justice system player, in the aggregate prosecutors’ choices are the key drivers of outcomes, whether the rates of mass incarceration or the degree of racial disparities in justice. To date, there is precious little empirical research on how prosecutors exercise their breathtaking discretion. We do not know whether they consistently charge like cases alike or whether crime is in the eye of the beholder. We do not know what …

Race And Class: A Randomized Experiment With Prosecutors, Christopher Robertson, Shima Baradaran Baughman, Megan Wright

Faculty Scholarship

Disparities in criminal justice outcomes are well known, and prior observational research has shown correlations between the race of defendants and prosecutors’ decisions about how to charge and resolve cases. Yet causation is questionable: other factors, including unobserved variation in case facts, may account for some of the disparity. Disparities may also be driven by socio-economic class differences, which are highly correlated with race.

This article presents the first blinded, randomized controlled experiment that tests for race and class effects in prosecutors’ charging decisions. Case-vignettes are manipulated between-subjects in five conditions to test effects of defendants’ race and class status. …

The Sanctuary Of Prosecutorial Nullification, Zohra Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

In the aftermath of the 2016 election, the shortcomings of existing sanctuary protections came sharply into focus.¹ Historically, cities enacted sanctuary protections to extricate their law enforcement agencies from activities related to federal immigration enforcement. In sanctuary cities, local government agencies are typically restricted from sharing information with federal immigration authorities or from cooperating in apprehending individuals targeted for removal. ² After the White House issued an Executive Order (EO) in late January 2017, many immigrant rights advocates recognized that external facing policies that proscribed direct cooperation would not suffice. ³ The EO announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement …

Incentives, Lies, And Disclosure, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

Prosecutors can force witnesses to testify and use perjury prosecutions to hold them to the provable truth. More controversially, prosecutors also offer witnesses inducements for favorable testimony, including leniency, immunity, and even cash. This ubiquitous behavior would be illegal as witness bribery, except for a longstanding tradition of sovereigns using this power, which legal doctrine now reflects. A causal analysis shows that even if prosecutors use this power only in good faith, these inducements undermine the epistemic value of witness testimony.

Due process requires, and legal doctrine assumes, that when such inducements are disclosed to the jury, they will discount …

Reducing Wasteful Incarcerations, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

Prisons are essential to a safe and civil society. Prisons are also costly for the taxpayers whose government houses, feeds, medicates, and supervises millions of people underlock and key.This expense is compounded by errors in the u.S. legal system that produces both false guilty verdicts and overly harsh penalties. It’stime forthe united States to take a closer look at these unnecessary incarcerations. By working to release prisoners who don’t belong in prison, we can lower the costs of the prison system—not to mention restore freedom to people who are wrongly being deprived of it. unfortunately, it is difficult to identify …

Blinding Prosecutors To Defendants’ Race: A Policy Proposal To Reduce Unconscious Bias In The Criminal Justice System, Sunita Sah, Christopher Robertson, Shima Baughman

Faculty Scholarship

Racial minorities are disproportionately imprisoned in the United States. This disparity is unlikely to be due solely to differences in criminal behavior. Behavioral science research has documented that prosecutors harbor unconscious racial biases. These unconscious biases play a role whenever prosecutors exercise their broad discretion, such as in choosing what crimes to charge and when negotiating plea bargains. To reduce this risk of unconscious racial bias, we propose a policy change: Prosecutors should be blinded to the race of criminal defendants wherever feasible. This could be accomplished by removing information identifying or suggesting the defendant’s race from police dossiers shared …