Prosecutorial Discretion and Plea Bargaining in Federal Criminal Courts in the United States, 1983-1990

1993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Prosecutorial Discretion

Victims and Prosecutors

2021 ◽  
pp. 372-398
Author(s):  
Amanda Konradi ◽  
Tirza Jo Ochrach-Konradi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
Case Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Prosecutorial Discretion ◽  
Trial Courts ◽  
Victim Satisfaction ◽  
Victim Impact Statements ◽  
Therapeutic Justice

This chapter explores crime victims’ experiences in U.S. trial courts in relation to the passage, application, and adjudication of state and federal victims’ rights legislation (VRL). It reviews victims’ current rights established through legislation and case law: to privacy, information, and notification; to be present; and to be heard in pre-trial hearings, in trials, in plea bargaining, and in victim impact statements. It reviews qualitative research documenting how and why prosecutorial discretion is often exercised to limit victims’ participation in trials and pleas, highlighting incentives for emotion management. It also reviews proposals, which are counter to this standard, designed to achieve greater victim participation and to produce higher quality testimony, including extensive pre-court preparation and courtroom intermediaries. It assesses the efficacy of practices to protect victims from secondary victimization in court, including shielding (close circuit video and screens) and support dogs. It explores use of private attorneys to (1) ensure that prosecutors and judges comply with VRL and (2) pursue victim-directed, private prosecution of sexual assault in the United States and elsewhere. It concludes that the promise of VRL—to provide therapeutic justice outcomes, achieve victim satisfaction, and enact procedural justice—is yet to be realized in the United States; however, an evidence-based approach toward prosecutorial practice would be advantageous for victims.

Business as Usual? Bail Decision Making and “Micro Politics” in an Australian Magistrates Court

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (02) ◽  
pp. 325-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Travers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Problem Solving Courts ◽  
Business As Usual

Between the 1970s and 1990s, political scientists in the United States pursued a distinctive research program that employed ethnographic methods to study micro politics in criminal courts. This article considers the relevance of this concept for court researchers today through a case study about bail decision making in a lower criminal court in Australia. It describes business as usual in how decisions are made and the provision of pretrial services. It also looks at how traditionalists and reformers understood business as usual, and uses this as a critical concept to make visible micro politics in this court. The case study raises issues about organizational change in criminal courts since the 1990s, since there are fewer studies about plea bargaining and more about specialist or problem-solving courts. It is suggested that we need a new international agenda that can address change and continuity in criminal courts.

Prosecuting Misdemeanors

2021 ◽  
pp. 512-538
Author(s):  
Jenny Roberts
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Prosecutorial Discretion ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Exercise Of Discretion

Although violent crime gets the most media, public, and legislative attention in the United States, misdemeanors make up approximately 75 percent of all criminal court cases, with more than 13 million new misdemeanor cases filed each year. This chapter discusses the role of prosecutors in the misdemeanor system. First, it addresses prosecutorial discretion and mass misdemeanor criminalization. Prosecutors, with near-unfettered discretionary power, are characterized as the most powerful actors in criminal cases. Yet often, prosecutors fail to properly exercise their discretion in low-level cases or are completely absent from the charging and sometimes even the adjudicatory processes. This is particularly problematic in misdemeanor cases, where informed prosecutorial decision-making is critical given the enormous volume of arrests and structural and institutional realities that weaken the role of other lower court actors. Proper exercise of discretion is also critical given well-documented racial disparities in the misdemeanor realm and the need to mitigate the myriad disproportionate effects of the ever-growing number of collateral consequences that flow from even a minor criminal record. Second, the chapter examines the misdemeanor prosecutor’s role at key stages: charging, bail, plea bargaining, sentencing, expungement, and post-conviction innocence claims. The chapter draws on examples of prosecutorial practice as well as theoretical and empirical research about prosecutorial discretion. Some recently elected so-called progressive prosecutors have already implemented significant promised changes. Although implementation of such reforms is nascent, time will tell whether a newly attentive electorate and a fresh prosecutorial approach will begin to roll back the extreme overuse and disproportionate impact of misdemeanor prosecutions in the United States.

Criminal Justice in an Era of Mass Deportation

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid V. Eagly
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
State Level ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Collateral Consequence

After a sustained period of hypercriminalization, the United States criminal justice system is undergoing reform. Congress has reduced federal sentencing for drug crimes, prison growth is slowing, and some states are even closing prisons. Low-level crimes have been removed from criminal law books, and attention is beginning to focus on long-neglected issues such as bail and criminal court fines. Still largely overlooked in this era of ambitious reform, however, is the treatment of immigrants in the criminal justice system. An unprecedented focus on immigration enforcement targeted at “felons, not families” has resulted in a separate system of punitive treatment reserved for noncitizens, which includes crimes of migration, longer periods of pretrial detention, harsher criminal sentences, and the almost certain collateral consequence of lifetime banishment from the United States. For examples of state-level solutions to this predicament, this Essay turns to a trio of bold criminal justice reforms from California that (1) require prosecutors to consider immigration penalties in plea bargaining; (2) change the state definition of “misdemeanor” from a maximum sentence of a year to 364 days; and (3) instruct law enforcement agencies to not hold immigrants for deportation purposes unless they are first convicted of serious crimes. Together, these new laws provide an important window into how state criminal justice systems could begin to address some of the unique concerns of noncitizen criminal defendants.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Vanessa A. Edkins ◽  
Allison D. Redlich
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Current System ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Defense Attorneys

While a great deal of psycho-legal research has focused on the trial process—and the decision making of jurors and juries, in particular—trials are not reflective of the current system of justice in the United States. Instead, we find ourselves within a system of pleas (Lafler v. Cooper, 2012) with a scarcity of social science research available to guide us. With this volume, we hope to integrate the current plea bargaining research that informs the field, from charging and defendant decision making, to attorney influences, to the ramifications at the larger system and institutional levels. Spanning multiple disciplines, the research and theories related to plea bargaining have much to contribute to public policy and to changes that individual actors (e.g., defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges) may decide to incorporate in their daily interactions within our system of pleas.

Comparing Plea Bargaining and Abbreviated Trial Procedures

2019 ◽  
pp. 702-727
Author(s):  
Gwladys Gilliéron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
The United States ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
The U.S

This chapter compares U.S. plea bargaining with plea-bargaining-type procedures and penal orders in Continental Europe, with reference to Switzerland, Germany, and France. It first considers consensual criminal procedures across jurisdictions and why they exist, focusing on plea bargaining in the U.S. criminal justice system and abbreviated trial procedures in European civil law systems. It then examines the extent to which abbreviated trial procedures in civil law systems differ from plea bargaining in the U.S. system, the problems inherent in consensual criminal procedures, and the question of whether there are any solutions. In particular, it explains how plea bargaining and penal orders may lead to wrongful convictions. Finally, it discusses prospects for reform of plea bargaining in the United States and in civil law systems in Europe.

Popular Dramas Between Transgression and Order

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Siemens
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Research Needs ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Crime News

This article examines the importance and the effects of crime news and courtroom journalism for modern societies, taking a global perspective. Mass media starting in the middle of the nineteenth century identified criminal courts as important places that allowed for popular and often-sensational stories of transgression and order. In the United States, in Europe, and in Asia, popular dramas based on criminal trials that appeared in the newspaper stimulated important societal debates, questioning the very notion of modern law and its application. However, it is argued that future research needs to pay more attention to the narratives and effects of courtroom reporting on democracy, both past and present.

Criminal Justice: Criminal Courts

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane S. Young
Keyword(s):  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
The United States ◽  
Therapeutic Jurisprudence ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Court System ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Bargaining Process ◽  
Adult Court ◽  
Specialized Courts ◽  
State And Local

This entry on the adult court system in the United States discusses the foundation, structure, and authority of courts at federal, state, and local levels. The role of criminal courts, the nature of an adversarial justice system, the plea bargaining process, and the goals of sentencing are described. Innovations such as specialized courts, restorative justice approaches, and therapeutic jurisprudence are presented. Finally, several social work roles in the court system are identified.

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