Sentencing Transferred Juveniles in the Adult Criminal Court: The Moderating Effects of the Trial Penalty

• In Event: Individual and Community Factors in Sentencing

Abstract

A small but growing literature has discovered that transferred juveniles are sentenced more severely than similar young adult offenders in the criminal court. In light of these findings, scholars have theorized that “juvenile status” in the adult court is indicative of increased dangerousness and blameworthiness, resulting in judges assigning particularly harsh sentences to transferred youth. In addition, a substantial amount of research has found that a “trial penalty” exists for the small proportion of defendants who do not form a plea agreement. While some research has explored the ways in which the trial penalty can condition the effects of other important variables in sentencing, the interactive relationship between juvenile status and mode of conviction has remained largely unexamined. Theoretically, convictions by trial may liberate the discretion of judges, resulting in an increased reliance on attributional stereotypes of juvenile status in judges’ evaluations of the sentencing options. Using Florida Sentencing Guidelines data, the current study provides the first empirical test of the hypothesis that the aggravating effects of juvenile status on criminal court sentence severity will be moderated by a conviction by trial.

Authors

• Ted Chiricos, Florida State University

• Peter S. Lehmann, Florida State University

• William Bales, Florida State University