Understanding the Role of Attorneys in Plea Bargaining
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Authors
Kruger, Sarah A.
Issue Date
2023
Type
Dissertation
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Keywords
attorney , criminal justice , heuristics , judgment and decision-making , law , plea bargain
Alternative Title
Abstract
Plea bargaining is the primary case resolution tool in the United States court system, but most plea bargaining occurs outside the courtroom and off the record. As a result, researchers have limited knowledge of how the process occurs. Given the centrality of their roles to plea bargaining, criminal defense and prosecuting attorneys likely are influential in determining plea outcomes. My colleagues and I conducted four studies across three articles to examine the role of attorneys in plea bargaining. In the first article (Chapter 2), we interviewed 23 attorneys about plea bargaining to lay foundational knowledge about the charging, negotiation, communication, and acceptance or rejection procedures. In the second article (Chapter 3), we conducted two experiments of mock defendant plea decision-making. In Experiment 1, undergraduate participants (N = 188) were assigned a condition in a 2 (Guilt status: Innocent vs. Guilty) × 2 (Crime: Robbery vs. Furnishing drugs) design to examine the effects of guilt status on adopted frame, subjective estimates of conviction probability, and plea decisions. In Experiment 2, undergraduate participants (N = 335) were assigned a condition in a 2 (Guilt status: Innocent vs. Guilty) × 2 (Frame: Gain vs. Loss) × 2 (Crime: Robbery vs. Furnishing drugs) design, in which we directly manipulated the framing of the plea offer. In both experiments, probability of conviction estimates partially mediated the relationship between guilt and plea decisions, and frame directly predicted plea decisions. In the third article (Chapter 4), we studied the effects of anchoring and presumed defendant guilt status on defense attorney plea recommendations. Defense attorneys recruited from CloudResearch (N = 183) and a snowball sample (N = 352) completed an experimental survey. The findings showed no effect of anchor on attorneys’ plea sentence recommendations, but higher defendant guiltiness ratings predicted longer sentencing recommendations. Overall, the findings demonstrate the importance of guilt and legal and extralegal factors in both understanding how attorneys make plea bargaining decisions and in improving decision-making models.
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Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 United States