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Resumo

Felony conviction carries lifelong consequences that impact civic, economic, and social rights and opportunities, yet not everyone who is found guilty of a felony will bear the mark of conviction. Deferred adjudication is an increasingly popular intervention that offers legally guilty defendants protection from the mark of conviction conditional on the completion of community supervision. By conditioning conviction on discretionary assessments of compliance, rather than legal establishment of guilt, deferral and similar interventions may exacerbate inequality and further concentrate the mark of conviction among marginalized groups. However, relatively few studies examine disparities in the decision to defer conviction and dismiss charges. In this study, we draw on twenty years of court records to ask 'for whom is the mark of conviction and formal punishment dependent on compliance rather than the legal establishment of guilt, and who passes the test of compliance?' Findings reveal that, even when accounting for features of the offense, both race and socioeconomic status condition who gets a 'second chance' at a clean record. These findings have implications for how we study inequality in criminal courts and understand the production and meaning of conviction.

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