Search results

Showing 1 – 4 of 4 results.
Curated
Restricted

The Anatomy of Discretion: An Analysis of Prosecutorial Decision-making for Cases Processed by Offices in One Northern County and One Southern County, 2007-2010 (ICPSR 32542)

Released/updated on: 2016-04-21
Geographic coverage: United States
Time period: 2009-01-01--2011-06-30, 2007-01-01--2009-07-31, 2011-01-01--2011-12-31, 2010-01-01--2010-12-31, 2010-10-01--2011-03-31

Prosecuting attorneys enjoy broad discretion in making decisions that influence criminal case outcomes. This study examines the impact of legal, quasi-legal, and extra-legal factors on case outcomes throughout the prosecutorial process. It then examines how prosecutors weigh these factors in their decision making and explores the formal and informal mechanisms that constrain or regulate prosecutors' decision-making.

The study examines case screening decisions, charging decisions, plea offers, sentence recommendations, and dismissals in two moderately large county prosecutors' offices. It includes statistical analyses of actual case outcomes, responses to a standardized set of hypothetical cases, and responses to a survey of prosecutors' opinions and priorities, as well as qualitative analyses of two waves of individual interviews and focus groups. It addresses the following questions:

  1. How did prosecutors define and apply the concepts of justice and fairness?
  2. What factors were associated with prosecutorial outcomes at each stage?
  3. How did prosecutors interpret and weigh different case-specific factors in making decisions at each stage?
  4. How did contextual factors constrain or regulate prosecutorial decision making?
  5. How consistent were prosecutors' decisions across similar cases? What case-level and contextual factors influenced the degree of consistency?
Curated
Simple Crosstabs

Assessing the Impact of Plea Bargaining on Subsequent Violence for Firearm Offenders, Maryland, 2015-2019 (ICPSR 39244)

Released/updated on: 2025-01-16
Geographic coverage: United States, Maryland
Time period: 2015-01-01--2019-12-31

The purpose of this study was to assess how patterns of prosecution and plea bargaining in firearms cases shape subsequent case and defendant outcomes. Drawing on recent work (Johnson and Larroulet, 2019), the researchers developed measures of plea bargaining discounts and examined their effects on sentencing and recidivism for firearms-involved offenders. To do so, the investigators [1] analyzed unique data collected by the Client Legal Utility Engine (CLUE), a web-scraped database of court records for all criminal cases in the State of Maryland for a cohort of defendants charged with firearms-involved crimes in district and circuit courts between 2015 and 2019; [2] generated estimates of the average distance traveled in charge bargaining, or the magnitude of average sentencing discounts in gun cases in Maryland by comparing expected sentences based on the original filed charges to the final charges at conviction; and [3] explored the association between plea discounts and recidivism, measured by the defendant coming back into the criminal court system on new criminal charges. The resulting dataset includes information on criminal case processing outcomes for firearms-related cases processed in Maryland district and circuit courts for the time period 2015-2019.

Curated

Dynamics of Change in the Criminal Case Plea Bargaining System: New York City, 1800-1890 (ICPSR 6501)

Released/updated on: 2006-01-12
Geographic coverage: New York City, United States, New York (state)
Time period: 1800-01-01--1890-12-31
This study analyzes the ascendancy of a single form of dispute processing--the guilty plea--in New York City's principal indictment court, and its connection to law enforcement, judges, and lawyers. A major component of the study is a statistical analysis of data presented in the Minute Book of Court of General Sessions and maintained at the New York City Archives. A second data source is the New York City district attorney's case files, also maintained at the New York City Archives. Part 1, District Attorney Case File Data, contains a sample of cases throughout the century taken from the district attorney's files. Variables cover charge filed, method of arrest, nature of testimony, presence of the lawyers, role of police, private prosecutor, and magistrate, and demographic information about the defendant and victim. Part 2, Lawyer Data, records the frequency of the appearance of individual lawyers, the charges in the cases in which they appeared, the lawyering activities they undertook, and the method of case disposition. Part 3, Minute Book Data, reflects the workday of the Court of General Sessions, including the number of cases processed in court on any given day, the number of defendants tried, the details of charges, joinder, witness examinations, outcome and sentence, and the number pleading guilty. Part 4, Cases Tried Data, not only records cases tried but also includes the top count, legal representation, result, and sentence, and for cases pleading guilty contains the top count charged, top count accepted, and sentence imposed. District Attorney Reference Data, Part 5, contains cases in which copies of the district attorney's papers were not found. These cases occurred on the same day as cases for which copies of the district attorney's papers were recorded. This data served as a control group for the District Attorney Case File Data.
Curated

Prosecutorial Discretion and Plea Bargaining in Federal Criminal Courts in the United States, 1983-1990 (ICPSR 9844)

Released/updated on: 2000-06-05
Geographic coverage: United States
Time period: 1983-07-01--1990-08-31
The primary purpose of this data collection was to study whether prosecutorial behavior was affected by the implementation of federal criminal sentencing guidelines in 1987. Monthly time series data were constructed on a number of prosecutorial outcomes, representing either discrete decision steps in the processing of criminal cases or the characteristics of cases that passed through the system. Variables include disposition year and month, number of matters initiated, number of cases filed, declined, and dismissed, number of convictions by trial, by jury, and by bench trial, number of guilty pleas, ratio of guilty pleas to cases resolved, and ratio of trials to cases resolved. The collection also provides a series of dichotomous variables to assess the impact of various events on prosecutorial outcomes over time. These events include the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 (effective November 1986), implementation of the sentencing guidelines (November 1987), Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (November 1988), United States Supreme Court's decision in the Minstretta case affirming the constitutionality of the sentencing guidelines (January 1989), and Attorney General Thornburgh's memo outlining Justice Department policy on charging and prosecution (March 1989).
Back to top