Understanding Prosecutorial Discretion in Florida Felony Courts, 2017 (ICPSR 38607)

Version Date: Oct 15, 2024

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Principal Investigator(s):
Ojmarrh Mitchell, Arizona State University; Lyndsay N. Boggess, University of South Florida

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38607.v1

Version V1

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Summary

For decades scholars have called for research that examines how race and other indicators of social inequality affect the full course of case processing from initial filing to final disposition. A lack of accessible data, however, has largely frustrated researchers' efforts to meet this challenge. Unlike sentencing data, which has been made readily accessible to researchers by the courts and sentencing commissions, prosecutors almost always hold pre-conviction data privately. This lack of pre-sentencing data is particularly problematic as there is growing interest in understanding how line prosecutors use their broad and, typically, unreviewable discretion. This growing interest stems from the fact that line prosecutors have been made more powerful by sentencing reforms, which constrained the discretion of judges and parole boards.

Despite the power and prominence of chief prosecutors, their discretionary influence on case outcomes has been neglected in the existing research. Chief prosecutors develop varying policies and practices to guide the case processing decisions of the line prosecutors under their supervision. The organizational policies and practices established by chief prosecutors are arguably the purest form of prosecutorial discretion, as policy variations between chief prosecutors may lead to identical kinds of cases prosecuted by different state attorney's offices systematically receiving distinctly different sanctions. Variations in the philosophies and practices of chief prosecutors have been thrust into stark relief by the rise of "progressive prosecutors," who campaign on system reforms often designed to reduce pretrial detention, mass incarceration, and racial disparities in incarceration. To achieve these goals, progressive, reformist prosecutors de-emphasize the application of punitive punishments for low-level offenses (e.g., drug possession, driving offenses) in favor of non-prosecution or diversion. Yet, the existing empirical research largely neglects the role of chief prosecutors in shaping case outcomes and racial disparities therein and little research examines variations in case outcomes between progressive and traditional chief prosecutors.

While prosecutors are clearly the most influential of court actors, they work collaboratively with other court actors to make decisions. In Florida, judges, prosecutors, and public defenders are usually assigned to specific courtrooms and, as a result, they work together repeatedly in what is known as court "working groups." These court working groups are hypothesized to develop distinctive practices and routines; however, little existing research assesses whether racially/ethnically diverse working group reach more equitable decisions leading to egalitarian outcomes.

Citation

Mitchell, Ojmarrh, and Boggess, Lyndsay N. Understanding Prosecutorial Discretion in Florida Felony Courts, 2017. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-10-15. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38607.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (2018-R2-CX-0021)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

County

Restrictions

Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

2017

Date of Collection

2017-01-01 -- 2017-12-30 (Cases filed as felonies in calendar year 2017)
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Study Purpose

The purpose of this study was to use quantitative and qualitative data to understand patterns in felony case processing outcomes across Black, White, and Hispanic defendants, and to identify the policies and practices that may be generating differences in case processing between jurisdictions. Researchers focused on the following general research questions: 1) Do similarly situated Black or Hispanic defendants receive more punitive outcomes than White defendants at each stage of the trial process? And do these disadvantages accumulate through the case process? 2) Are similar cases processed differentially at each major case processing decision point between jurisdictions with progressive chief prosecutors relative to cases adjudicated by more traditional state attorneys? 3) Do case outcomes differ between Black, Hispanic, and White defendants at each major case processing decision point based on the racial diversity of court working groups? 4) What factors may play a role in racially disparate outcomes?

Study Design

Researchers capitalized on Florida's expansive open records law to construct a large random sample of non-murder felony cases filed in 2017. Data was manually extracted from each case by reading and coding online documents from each of Florida's 20 judicial circuits. Researchers analyzed a large racially and ethnically diverse random sample of criminal cases initially filed as felonies in the state of Florida (N=11,414). This allows comparisons between multiple jurisdictions while operating under the same set of state laws and other statewide factors. The data included information on the defendant (including criminal history), criminal case including race of attorneys and judge(s), county, and case processing outcomes from initial charge to pretrial release, final disposition and sentence. The quantitative analyses was supplemented with semi-structured interviews with 11 out of 20 or 55% of State Attorneys (SA) or their representatives about the policies and practices within their jurisdiction; the other 9 SAs declined to participate in this research.

Sample

The study drew a simple random sample of felony cases filed in 2017 in Florida's Circuit Courts. Case dockets detailing case events as well as court documents filed with the court clerk are public records, which were accessible in electronic form on each Clerk of the Courts' website with the exception of two small counties. To maximize the likelihood of obtaining a representative sample from each circuit, researchers drew a five percent random sample of cases initially filed as felonies from each county within each circuit. To do so, researchers first enumerated cases filed in 2017, and then assigned each case a random number, and finally, selected the five percent of cases with the highest random number. Murder cases were excluded because of their rarity, atypically long durations of case processing, and to prevent these cases from disproportionately influencing the statistical analyses.

Also, a total of 11,895 felony cases were initially coded. For the current study, researchers excluded only 4% of cases. Researchers excluded coded cases from Suwannee and Taylor counties due to a large portion of missing data (n = 37; 0.3%), cases that were still pending disposition (n = 189; 1.6%), had limited information available due to the court clerk restricting access to these cases (n = 29; 0.02%), or had missing data on key measures (n = 26; 0.05%). Researchers also excluded from this study cases that had case outcomes that were too rare to permit statistical analysis such as cases in which the defendant was found mentally incompetent (n = 69; 0.05%) and cases that were resolved by trials (n = 36; 0.30%). Finally, cases from these analyses in which the defendant's race was coded as "other" (n = 95; 0.79%) were dropped. After these exclusions, the sample for this study is comprised of 11,414 cases initially filed as felonies in which the defendant was Black, Hispanic, or White, and the case was not adjudicated by trial.

Time Method

Cross-sectional

Universe

Felony cases filed in 2017 in the state of Florida excluding Suwannee and Taylor counties.

Unit(s) of Observation

Court Cases

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

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Original Release Date

2024-10-15

Version History

2024-10-15 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

  • One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.