Plea bargaining dominated criminal case processing long before modern caseload growth

Evidence

Recent research does not altogether support this account. Although U.S. courts discouraged guilty pleas during the early nineteenth century, by the early 1900s, plea bargaining had become the primary means of processing cases in many criminal courts. This can be seen not only in the frequency of guilty pleas—in 1926, more than 90 percent of all felony convictions in Manhattan and Brooklyn resulted from such pleas—but also in prosecutors’ willingness to reduce charges against defendants. In New York in 1926, for instance, 85 percent of all guilty pleas in felony cases were to sia less serious than the original charges, and in Chicago the figure was 78 percent.7! — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1767

Categorization

• QUESTION: If plea bargaining wasn’t a response to modern caseload volume, what historical shift (professionalization of prosecutors? urbanization?) actually institutionalized it?
• XREF: Connects directly to the chapter’s framing of how courts process the bulk of criminal cases without trial — a recurring theme in material on judicial administration. — connects to: Rising caseloads without matching resources drove the spread of plea bargaining — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1765; Caseload volume does not determine how much courts rely on plea bargaining — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1768; Guilty pleas, not trials, now dominate criminal case disposition (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Plea bargaining dominated American courts by the early 1900s, not recently #corroborates (1.00) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1767
• Guilty pleas, not trials, now dominate criminal case disposition #expands (0.90)
• Plea bargaining stems from institutional actors’ shared interest in speed, not caseloads #expands (0.90) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1780
• Plea bargaining persists even when caseload and evidence cannot explain it #expands (0.85) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1773
• Caseload pressures alone cannot explain plea bargaining rates #expands (0.85)
• Guilty pleas dominate criminal case disposition overwhelmingly #expands (0.80) — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 547
• Plea bargaining operates as a rough informal system of precedent #expands (0.75) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1751
• Prosecutors, not judges, dominate U.S. criminal outcomes via plea bargaining #expands (0.75)
• Criticisms of plea bargaining often actually target features of the criminal justice system generally #expands (0.70) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1810
• Using prior arrests instead of sentences drives racial plea disparities #expands (0.70) — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 571
• Racial disparity in plea bargaining is nearly unstudied despite its centrality #expands (0.70) — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 619