The Impact of Hearings on Prosecutorial Decision-Making

• In Event: Prosecutorial Decision Making, Discrimination and Misconduct

Abstract

Throughout Europe, so-called "penal orders" are a common feature of criminal procedure. Penal orders are prosecutorial indictments that, in minor cases and if the defendant does not ask for a court decision, become automatically final verdicts. In Switzerland, over 90 percent of all proceedings are handled in this way. In most cases, prosecutors do not even interview the defendant and/or his council but decide based on the police file only. This system is controversial because of its infringements with fundamental principles of procedural fairness. In order to find out whether the absence of a hearing with the defendant impacts on the final decision including the sentence, a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) has started in Eastern Switzerland with random assignment of incoming cases to either an experimental group where defendants are being interviewed, or a control group of cases without hearing. The dependent variable will be (a) sentence outcome in order to see whether personal contact with a defendant modifies the sanction and (b) satisfaction with procedural fairness among defendants, victims and prosecutors. The outcome measures will be (a) severity of sentences as registered in records and (b) assessments of fairness by victims, defendants and prosecutors through online questionnaires.

Authors

• Nora Magdalena Markwalder, University of St. Gallen Switzerland

• Martin Killias, University of St.Gallen