Adversarial and Nonadversarial Justice

A Comparison of Guilty Pleas and Trials

Bibliographic Data

ID9679752
AuthorsG Lafree (0000-0001-8418-1440, Decision Sciences (United States), corresponding author), Gary D Lafree
Year1985
Volume23
Issue2
Pages289-312
Publication date1985-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCriminology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0011-1384 • E-ISSN: 1745-9125
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1745-9125.1985.tb00338.x
OpenAlexW2080808389
LanguageEN
Citations received47
References cited21

Despite the frequency of guilty pleas, researchers disagree about the ability of plea bargaining to provide justice. Critics argue that plea bargaining deprives defendants of due process rights and procedural safeguards Proponents argue that guilty pleas save resources for cases that require trial and allow officials flexibility to tailor justice to individual defendants. This article explores these issues by examining the effect of defendant and case characteristics on sentence severity for 3,269 male robbery and burglary defendants who either pled guilty or were tried in six U.S. jurisdictions, three of which had recently attempted to eliminate or greatly reduce plea bargaining and three with few restrictions on plea bargaining. The results confirm some criticisms of plea bargaining, but refute others. More criminally experienced defendants and defendants who pled guilty at the earliest opportunity did not receive sentencing leniency. Moreover, to a large extent, the same variables predict sentence severity for guilty pleas and trials. In contrast, the results show that defendants convicted at trial received more severe sanctions than defendants who pled guilty, controlling for case severity, evidence, and offender characteristics The results also suggest that the jurisdictions which attempted to control plea bargaining through more centralized control of assistance succeeded in tightening the fit between case characteristics and sentences for both cases adjudicated by guilty plea and trial

Criminal justice · Criminology · Economic Justice · Plea · Political science · Public defender · Sanctions · Sentence · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Jury Decision Making Processes · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Psychology · Social Psychology

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