Social Psychology and Plea Bargaining - Applications, Methodology, and Theory

• NCJ Number: 72664
• Journal: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Volume: 36 Issue: 12 Dated: (December 1978) Pages: 1521-1530
• Author(s): W L Gregory; J C Mowen; D E Linder
• Date Published: 1978
• Length: 10 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Portions of Experiment 1 were presented at the 85th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, California, August 1977

Annotation

Two experiments were undertaken to establish a procedure for examining the plea bargaining process in a controlled manner and to identify variables that can affect the decision to accept or reject a plea bargain.

Abstract

The first experiment used a role playing procedure to identify variables that affect the acceptance of a plea bargain. Of the 143 students playing the role of innocent defendants, 18 percent accepted the plea bargain, whereas 83 percent of the guilty defendants accepted. Two other main effects revealed that defendants were more likely to accept a plea bargain when relatively many charges had been filed against them or when the severity of the punishment upon conviction was great, although internal analyses revealed that these effects were present in guilty defendants only. The second experiment was conducted using 18 male students to provide validation for the first experiment. Students were assigned as either innocent or guilty of having prior information about an exam. All were accused of having prior information about an exam. All were accused of having used prior information and were given an opportunity to plea bargain rather than face an ethics committee. In accord with the first experiment, guilty students accepted the plea bargain significantly more often than innocent students. Further research must concentrate on how much decisional freedom a defendant has, given the influence of a defense attorney