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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?

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

This project sought to study the District Attorney of New York's (DANY) current practices by addressing the complex relationship between prosecutorial decision making and racial and ethnic justice in felony and misdemeanor cases closed in New York County in 2010-2011. Using a mixed-methods approach, administrative records from the DANY case-management systems and prosecutorial interviews were examined to study case acceptance for prosecution, pretrial detention and bail determination, case dismissal, plea offers, and sentencing. Researchers developed five hypotheses for the data collected:

1. Blacks and Latinos are more likely to have their cases accepted for prosecution than similarly situated white defendants.
2. Blacks and Latinos are more likely to be held in pretrial detention and less likely to be released on bail.
3. Blacks and Latinos are less likely to have cases dismissed.
4. Blacks and Latinos are less likely to receive a plea offer to a lesser charge and more likely to receive custodial sentence offers.
5. Blacks and Latinos are more likely to be sentenced to custodial punishments.

All criminal activity of the defendant was examined, as well as their demographics and prior history, the location of the crime. Information on the Assistant District Attorney (ADA) was examined as well, including their demographics and caseload in order to more thoroughly understand the catalysts and trends in decision making.

In 2013, the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Medical Examiner's Office (CCMEO) and the Regional Forensic Science Laboratory developed the Heroin Involved Death Investigation (HIDI) alert system and protocol in response to a substantial increase in opioid-related overdose fatalities. The HIDI protocol is designed to support a safe, coordinated, and rapid response to an active, suspected opioid-overdose death scene, or suspected opioid-overdose deaths occurring at hospitals that are not considered active scenes, by alerting investigators to potential dangers and facilitating the timely protection of scene integrity and evidence collection in order to successfully investigate and prosecute drug traffickers.

The primary goals of the project were to:

1. Complete extended coding of local medical examiner decedent data--investigative reports and toxicology to identify demographic or geographic trends or patterns of overdose deaths, as well as paraphernalia and evidence present at death scenes that may be useful to prosecutions;
2. Examine the efficiency of how cases flow through the investigative and prosecutorial stages and how these could be improved;
3. Identify key variables that may contribute to the successful indictment of traffickers connected to fatal and non-fatal overdose cases; and
4. Evaluate the implementation and perceived effectiveness of the Cuyahoga County HIDI protocol.

This multi-method project involved three phases of data collection and analysis. First, a forensic epidemiologist coded and analyzed existing CCMEO records for decedent toxicology and death scene characteristics, focusing on drug-related fatalities. Second, county and federal cases prosecuted for drug trafficking, especially those linked to deaths, were systematically reviewed to determine what evidence was deemed important for successful indictment. Third, interviews and focus groups were conducted with key stakeholders from local and federal law enforcement, intelligence analysts, public health officials, and local and federal prosecutors to learn about the HIDI protocol.

Data and documentation for interviews and focus groups will be made available in a future update.

The National Institute of Justice funded the Urban Institute to conduct this multi-site, mixed-methods evaluation of the impact of the U.S. DOJ-funded Enhanced Collaborative Model (ECM) task forces on addressing human trafficking. Specifically, this study sought to (1) understand the impact of the ECM task forces in identifying and assisting human trafficking survivors and investigating and prosecuting human trafficking, and (2) analyze differences in various task force implementation models (e.g., structure and organization) to understand which task force models and features contribute to prosecutions. In addition, this research sought to understand the investigative, prosecutorial, and victim services practices among ECM task forces; challenges and barriers task forces face in combating human trafficking; and synthesize best practices and recommendations for developing and implementing successful task forces.

This data collection includes three datasets compiled from law enforcement closed case files and organized for analysis by case, victim(s), and suspect(s). The collection also includes a README file describing qualitative data consisting of transcripts from interviews with law enforcement officers and other stakeholders involved with ECM task forces.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

This study utilized data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics on federal criminal case processing to study jurisdictional variations in prosecutorial decision-making outcomes. It linked information across multiple federal agencies in order to track individual offenders across the various stages of the federal justice system. Specifically, it combined arrest information from the United States Marshall's Service with charging information from the Executive and Administrative Offices of the United States Attorney and with sentencing information from the United States Sentencing Commission. These individual data were subsequently augmented with additional information on federal courts to examine contextual variations in charging decisions across federal jurisdictions.

There are three data files. Dataset 1 (Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) and United States Marshals Service (USMS) Data) contains 88 variables and 284,869 cases. Dataset 2 (Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AOUSC) and United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) Data) contains 717 variables and 256,598 cases. Dataset 3 (United States District Court Characteristics Data) contains 6 variables and 89 cases.

Only Dataset 3 is being released as part of the available study materials. Datasets 1 and 2 can be re-created using the syntax files which are included in the study materials.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

This study directly examined the nature and characteristics of cases prosecuted in the federal courts by analyzing prosecutorial decisions to proceed with charges (or not) once an arrest is initiated, and to investigate any adjustment from the arresting offense to the charging offense. These decisions were analyzed to document their correlates and identify variation across case type.

The collection contains 1 SPSS data file (2002-10-Arrest-cases--FINAL-ANALYSIS.sav (n=794,807; 43 variables)) and 1 SPSS syntax file.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they there received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except of the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompany readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collections and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

The purpose of the study was to compare how the quantity versus the quality of evidence influences the likelihood of trial convictions and plea decisions and examine whether evidence has differential impacts on the perceived likelihood of trial convictions and plea values. In Phase I (Phase I Data, n=2,593) defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges, representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia, completed an online survey of a hypothetical legal case in which the presence of three types of evidence (confession, eyewitness, and DNA) and length of defendant criminal history were manipulated. In Phase II (Phase II Data, n=502), researchers worked with two District Attorneys' offices in New York state to code the contents of case files. Researchers coded 502 closed cases from 2005 and 2006, all of which originated as felony arrests. Researchers also obtained criminal history record information on the defendants involved in the cases.