Defendant Decision Making: The Role of Attorney Type, Trust, and Framing - CANCELLED

• In Event: Disparities in Prosecutorial and Defendant Decision-Making

Abstract

More than 90% of convictions result from guilty pleas in a plea-bargaining process where a defendant gives up their right to trial in favor of a, typically, lesser sentence. This defendant’s decision does not occur in a vacuum, but through conversations with a defense attorney; these conversations are not well understood given the absence of administrative data on the plea negotiation process. There is recent literature indicating defendants may behave differentially according to framing (Dykstra & Wilson, 2021), the type of defense attorney they have (Suiter & Metcalfe, 2024), and whether they trust their defense attorney (Clair, 2018; Henderson & Steynberg, 2020). We manipulate each of these elements in vignette experiments using populations obtained from both Qualtrics and YouGov panels. While we fail to find effects for attorney type, we do find strong evidence for the effect (both directly and indirectly) of attorney trust on defendant decision making. We discuss these and related findings alongside their implications both for the plea-bargaining process and research into the plea-bargaining process.

Authors

• Theodore Wilson, University at Albany, SUNY

• Christi Metcalfe, University of South Carolina

• Allee von Stackelberg, University at Albany, SUNY