Severity of charges drives defendants toward trial or negotiated pleas

Evidence

For those accused of felonies, however, the potential penalty upon conviction may be severe (see Box 6.1). Thus, defendants may be less willing to admit their guilt: the more serious the charges, the more likely a trial. Or defendants may be willing to admit guilt only in exchange for some concession from the prosecution. As a result, processing felony cases is more drawn out and complex. Key aspects of the process include: (1) the commission of the crime and the arrest, (2) the prosecutor’s charging decision, (3) the setting or denial of bail, and (4) the official accusation of the accused through a felony indictment by a grand jury Most crimes are never solved, and their perpetrators never arrested or punished. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1664

Categorization

• XREF: Directly maps onto the course’s felony-case process sequence: arrest, charging, bail, indictment. — connects to: Settling with one defendant can be worth less than the case it removes — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action , 1687; Settlement and plea bargaining are priced by the anticipated trial outcome — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1256; Severity of potential penalty drives felony defendants toward trials or plea bargains — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1664 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Severity of potential penalty drives felony defendants toward trials or plea bargains #corroborates (0.95) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1664
• Guilty pleas, not trials, now dominate criminal case disposition #qualifies (0.85)
• Active trial judging extends into negotiating pleas and settlements between parties #complicates (0.80) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 568
• Guilty pleas dominate criminal case disposition overwhelmingly #qualifies (0.80) — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 547
• Plea bargaining persists even when caseload and evidence cannot explain it #contradicts (0.80) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1773
• Plea bargaining operates as a rough informal system of precedent #complicates (0.75) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1751
• Case negotiations occur in the shadow of the law set by trial outcomes #complicates (0.75)
• Plea bargaining shifts sentencing control from legislatures to courtroom actors’ discretion #complicates (0.75) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1809
• Plea bargains have pushed jury trials into a small corner of the criminal process #complicates (0.75) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 845
• Settlement terms can be engineered to publicly obscure a defendant’s guilt #complicates (0.70) — Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action, 2600
• Discretionary practices like plea bargaining and charge dismissal escape or defy legal standards #complicates (0.70) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2053