Doctoral Dissertation Research: Disclosure in Plea Bargaining

Cuny John Jay College Of Criminal Justice, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Title: Doctoral Dissertation Research: Disclosure in Plea Bargaining Abstract: The vast majority of criminal cases in the United States are disposed of through plea bargaining. Yet, the Supreme Court has held that prosecutors are not required to disclose impeachment evidence to defendants at the plea stage of the process. This project will employ an experimental approach to test the Supreme Court's assumption that disclosure of impeachment evidence is not necessary to defendants. More particularly, the experiments will help determine whether the effect of disclosure on defense attorney decision making during plea bargaining differs as a function of evidence type, whether impeachment vs. exculpatory evidence. The primary goal of this project is to assess the impact of pre-plea disclosure of different types of evidence. To do so, the project will recruit a nationwide sample of practicing defense attorneys and present them with fictional case files. By experimentally manipulating participants' access to different types and amounts of impeachment and exculpatory evidence in mock plea-bargaining scenarios, the project will systematically test whether impeachment and exculpatory evidence function differently with respect to their effect on defense attorneys' plea-related decisions. The project employs the shadow of the trial theoretical framework, which posits that defense attorneys' plea-related recommendations are primarily based on their perceived odds of winning at trial. As pre-plea disclosure of evidence may affect defense attorneys' assessments of the chances of acquittal, access to exculpatory and impeachment evidence could play a role in a defense attorney's ability to accurate gauge their odds at trial. As a result, this project has implications for the application of Sixth Amendment rights. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.