Plea Bargaining Decision Factors (From Improving Management in Criminal Justice, P 73-83, 1980, Alvin W Cohn and Benjamin Ward, ed. - See NCJ-76036)

• NCJ Number: 76040
• Author(s): J Horney
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 11 pages
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Earlier version of this paper was reported in the Center for Applied Urban Research Review, V 7, N 1 (1979).

Annotation

This study examines how plea bargaining decisions are made and assesses how the decision factors relate to the value of the deals offered.

Abstract

The study was conducted for all (99) felony cases coming through the prosecutor's office for 2 months in a midwestern county. The prosecutor was interviewed in every case, as was the defense attorney in the 60 cases involving public defenders. Of the 39 cases in which defendants were represented by private attorneys, the defense attorney was interviewed in 29 cases. The attorneys rated 11 decision factors including value of the deal to the defendant, likelihood of defendant's conviction and of defendant's prior record, certainty of defendant's guilt, ability of other attorney, personal relationship with other attorney, and present workload. Attorneys also estimated the number of days the case would take for a trial, the sentence they expected the defendant to receive if convicted at trial, and the sentence expected for pleading guilty to the reduced charge. In 72 of the cases some type of plea bargain was offered. The value of the deals to the defendant was rated directly by attorneys on the graphic scale and measured through sentence differential as predicted by the attorneys. The difference was calculated between the sentence predicted to follow the plea bargain and that predicted to follow conviction at trial. Prosecutors and defense attorneys were directly compared in terms of their valuations of the decision factors. In order to examine the extent of agreement between prosecutors and defense attorneys across specific cases, correlation coefficients were computed for each item. Correlation coefficients between value and the other factors were computed separately for prosecutors' and defense attorneys' ratings. The study found that different types of plea bargains clearly differed in terms of their value to defendants. Prosecutors and defense attorneys usually agreed on how valuable deals were and on the case factors considered. The relationship between value and case factors, however, was weak, indicating less individualization of plea bargaining decisions than expected. Statistical data and 10 references are included.