“A Million Dollars in Free Advertising” Politics and Sex Offense Prosecution in the Wake of Duke Lacrosse

We explore a quasi-natural experiment to assess whether a prosecutor’s political concerns affect rape’s prosecution. In 2006 rape charges were filed against players on Duke University’s lacrosse team. Although innocent, the student-athletes’ prosecution took place during the prosecutor’s primary and general election contests. We argue that this case made salient to voters across the state the concern regarding wrongful prosecution. Following a difference-in-difference strategy, we explore whether rape’s prosecution varies by the prosecutor’s reelection pressures and whether behavior adjusted after the media covered the scandal. We find significant changes in both the case filing levels and the use of jury trials. Fewer rape charges were filed after the Duke lacrosse case and the difference between the case filings during reelection years and nonelection years is muted. There are both fewer cases taken to trial after the scandal and an escalation in this effect during a prosecutor’s reelection. The results strongly suggest that the two important margins, whether to even pursue a conviction and whether to pursue it at trial, are affected by a prosecutor’s retention concerns.