Prosecution in Context: Examining Variation in Federal Plea Bargaining Outcomes across U.S. District Courts

• In Event: Understanding Guilty Pleas: New and Innovative Research on Federal Plea Bargaining

Abstract

U.S. Attorneys are arguably the most powerful and least studied actor in the federal criminal court workgroup. They have immense discretion to decide which cases to prosecute and what charging concession to offer in the course of plea bargaining, yet a paucity of empirical research exists on these consequential decisions. The current study examines inter-district variation in plea bargaining decisions by U.S. Attorneys, using a combination of Federal Justice Statistics Resource data and survey data to examine unique measures of federal court contexts.

Authors

• Brian D. Johnson, University of Maryland

• Jeffery Ulmer, Pennsylvania State University