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Plea bargaining: on the selection of jury trials

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  • SangMok Lee

Abstract

We consider a model of the criminal court process, focusing on plea bargaining. A plea bargain provides unequal incentives to go to trial because innocent defendants are more willing to plead not guilty. We show that the court process implements the preferences of the person or group who is most concerned about wrongful conviction. If a prosecutor is more concerned about wrongful conviction than the jury, the prosecutor can shape the defendant pool at trial so that jurors act according to prosecutor’s preferences against judicial mistakes. Our model also connects insights from strategic jury models that usually omit plea bargaining with the actual criminal court process where most cases are resolved through plea bargaining. As an example, we show that the inferiority of the unanimity rule established in Feddersen and Pesendorfer (Am Polit Sci Rev 92(1):23–35, 1998 ) persists in spite of the addition of plea bargaining. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Suggested Citation

  • SangMok Lee, 2014. "Plea bargaining: on the selection of jury trials," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 57(1), pages 59-88, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:57:y:2014:i:1:p:59-88
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-014-0801-7
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. David Bjerk, 2021. "Socially Optimal Plea Bargaining With Costly Trials And Bayesian Juries," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(1), pages 263-279, January.
    2. Brishti Guha, 2024. "Plea bargaining when juror effort is costly," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 78(3), pages 945-977, November.
    3. Guha, Brishti, 2023. "Accomplice plea bargains in the presence of costly juror effort," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 209-225.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Plea bargaining; Strategic voting; Collective choice; Jury trial; C72; D71; K41;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process

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