Judicial Settlement Conferences and Defendant Plea Decision-Making

Abstract

This project examines the role of judicial settlement conferences, and how judicial involvement in plea negotiations influences defendants’ perceptions of the constitutionality of the plea and procedural justice, confidence ratings, and plea decisions. In an experimental study, mock defendants (n = 620) participated in a 2 (defense attorney advice: explicit vs. no comment) × 2 (judge advice: explicit vs. no comment) + 1 (control group) between-subjects factorial design. Judicial advice and defense attorney advice did not significantly affect mock defendants’ plea decisions (ps > .236) or confidence in their decision (ps > .206). However, mock defendants who experienced a judicial settlement conference rated the procedural justice of the process higher (p < .001) and were more likely to plead guilty than those who did not go through a settlement conference (p = .016). Future research on expanded judicial involvement and the impacts on defendants’ plea decision-making is encouraged.

Keywords

decision-making defense attorneys guilty pleas judges plea bargaining settlement conferences

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alschuler

(1976). The trial judge’s role in plea bargaining, part I. Columbia Law Review, 76(7), 1059–1154. https://doi.org/10.2307/1121673

American Bar Association. (2018). ABA criminal justice standards: Pleas of guilty (3rd ed.). https://www.americanbar.org/groups/criminal_justice/publications/criminal_justice_section_archive/crimjust_standards_guiltypleas_blk/

American Bar Association, Criminal Justice Section. (2023). Plea bargain task force report. https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/criminaljustice/plea-bargain-tf-report.pdf

Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238. (1969).

Brown

(2018). The judicial role in criminal charging and plea bargaining. Hofstra Law Review, 46(1), 63–85. https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2990&context=hlr

Cascardi

Poythress

N. G.

Hall

(2000). Procedural justice in the context of civil commitment: An analogue study. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 18, 731–740. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.421

Cialdini

R. B.

Goldstein

N. J.

(2004). Social influence: Compliance and conformity. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 591–621. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.142015

Dezember

Luna

Woestehoff

S. A.

Stoltz

Manley

Quas

J. A.

Redlich

A. D.

(2020). Plea validity in circuit court: Judicial colloquies in misdemeanor vs. felony charges. Psychology, Crime & Law, 28(3), 268–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/1068316X.2021.1905813

Faul

Erdfelder

Lang

A.-G.

Buchner

(2007). GPower 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39(2), 175–191. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193146

10.

Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. (2020). Rule 11: Pleas. https://www.federalrulesofcriminalprocedure.org/table-of-contents/

11.

Fessinger

M. B.

Kovera

M. B.

(2022). From whose perspective? Differences between actors and observers in determining the voluntariness of guilty pleas. Law and Human Behavior, 46(5), 353–371. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000501

12.

Guardian ad litem. (2023). https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/guardian_ad_litem

13.

Harlow

C. W.

(2000). Defense counsel in criminal cases [Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report]. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/dccc.pdf

14.

Henderson

K. S.

Fountain

E. N.

Redlich

A. D.

Cantone

J. A.

(2022). Judicial involvement in plea-bargaining. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 28(3), 356–373. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000327

15.

Henderson

K. S.

Fountain

E. N.

Redlich

A. D.

Cantone

J. A.

(2023). Judicial strategies for evaluating the validity of guilty pleas. Court Review, 59(2), 44–51. https://nationalcenterforstatecourts.app.box.com/v/AmJudgesCourtReviewArchive/file/1393275115184

16.

Henderson

K. S.

Levett

L. M.

(2019). Plea-bargaining: The influence of counsel. In Miller

M. K.

Bornstein

B. H.

(Eds.), Advances in psychology and law (Vol. 4, pp. 73–100). Springer.

17.

Henderson

K. S.

Sutherland

K. T.

Wilford

M. M.

(2023). “Reject the offer”: The asymmetric impact of defense attorneys’ plea recommendations. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 50(9), 1321–1340. https://doi.org/10.1177/00938548231172515

18.

Heumann

(1978). Plea bargaining: The experiences of prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys. The University of Chicago Press.

19.

Hinton

Henderson

Reed

(2018). An unjust burden: The disparate treatment of Black Americans in the criminal justice system. https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/for-the-record-unjust-burden-racial-disparities.pdf

20.

In re United States, No. 21-1318 6th Cir. (2022).

21.

King

N. J.

Wright

R. F.

(2016). The invisible revolution in plea bargaining: Managerial judging and judicial participation in negotiations. Texas Law Review, 95, 325–397. http://texaslawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/King-Wright.pdf

22.

Kopelovich

Yanos

Pratt

Koerner

(2013). Procedural justice in mental health courts: Judicial practices, participant perceptions, and outcomes related to mental health recovery. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 36(2), 113–120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2013.01.004

23.

Lee

J. G.

Jaynes

C. M.

Ropp

(2020). Satisfaction, legitimacy, and guilty pleas: How perceptions and attorneys affect defendant decision-making. Justice Quarterly, 38(6), 1095–1127. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2020.1786147

24.

Lee

J. G.

Ropp

J. W.

(2020). “Sometimes I’m just wearing the prosecutor down”: An exploratory analysis of criminal defense attorneys in plea negotiations and client counseling. Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology, 9(1), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.21428/88de04a1.2168ad3e

25.

Limited License Legal Technicians. (2024). https://wsba.org/for-legal-professionals/join-the-legal-profession-in-wa/limited-license-legal-technicians

26.

Malloy

L. C.

Shulman

E. P.

Cauffman

(2014). Interrogations, confessions, and guilty pleas among serious adolescent offenders. Law and Human Behavior, 38, 181–193. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000065

27.

Martinez

Swaner

Ramdath

Kusiak Carey

(2022). Police, courts, and corrections: Experiences of procedural injustice among Black adults. American Journal of Community Psychology, 71, 147–157. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12631

28.

Miller

H. S.

McDonald

W. F.

Cramer

J. A.

(1978). Plea bargaining in the United States. https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=40484

29.

O’Hear

M. M.

(2008). Plea bargaining and procedural justice. Faculty Publications, 557. https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/facpub/557

30.

Oregon Revised Statutes, 135.432. (2017).

31.

Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356. (2010).

32.

People v. Clark, 515 P.2d 1242. (1973).

33.

Pornpitakpan

(2004). The persuasiveness of source credibility: A critical review of five decades’ evidence. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 34(2), 243–281. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02547.x

34.

Powell v. Alabama, 287, U.S. 45. (1932).

35.

Poythress

N. G.

Petrila

McGaha

Boothroyd

(2002). Perceived coercion and procedural justice in the Broward Mental Health Court. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 25(3), 517–533. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0160-2527(01)00110-8

36.

Rakoff

J. S.

(2014, November 20). Why innocent people plead guilty. The New York Review of Books. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-people-plead-guilty/

37.

Redlich

A. D.

Bonventre

C. L.

(2015). Content and comprehensibility of juvenile and adult tender-of-plea Forms: Implications for knowing, intelligent, and voluntary guilty pleas. Law and Human Behavior, 39(2), 162–176. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000118

38.

Redlich

A. D.

Summers

(2012). Voluntary, knowing, and intelligent pleas: Understanding plea inquiries. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 18, 626–643. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026066

39.

Redlich

A. D.

Zottoli

Dezember

Schneider

Catlin

Shammi

(2023). Emerging issues in the psycho-legal study of guilty pleas. In DeMatteo

Scherr

(Eds.), The Oxford handbook of psychology and law (pp. 677–691). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197649138.013.39

40.

Testa

Johnson

B. D.

(2020). Paying the trial tax: Race, guilty pleas, and disparity in prosecution. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 31(4), 500–531. https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403419838025

41.

Turner

J. I.

(2006). Judicial participation in plea negotiations: A comparative view. The American Journal of Comparative Law, 54(1), 199–267. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/54.1.199

42.

Turner

J. I.

(2017). Plea bargaining (SMU Dedman School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 348). https://ssrn.com/abstract=2930521

43.

Tyler

T. R.

(2005). Policing in black and white: Ethnic group differences in trust and confidence in the police. Police Quarterly, 8(3), 322–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098611104271105

44.

Tyler

T. R.

Huo

Y. J.

(2002). Trust in the law: Encouraging public cooperation with the police and courts. Russell Sage Foundation.

45.

U.S. Sentencing Commission. (2022). Sourcebook of federal sentencing statistics. https://www.ussc.gov/research/sourcebook-2022

46.

Wilford

M. M.

Sutherland

K. T.

Gonzales

J. E.

Rabinovich

(2021). Guilt status influences plea outcomes beyond the shadow-of-the-trial in an interactive simulation of legal procedures. Law and Human Behavior, 45(4), 271–286. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000450

47.

Zottoli

T. M.

Daftary-Kapur

Edkins

V. A.

Redlich

A. D.

King

C. M.

Dervan

L. E.

Tahan

(2019). State of the states: A survey of statutory law, regulations and court rules pertaining to guilty pleas across the United States. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 37, 388–434. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2413

48.

Zottoli

T. M.

Helm

R. K.

Edkins

V. A.

Bixter

M. T.

(2023). Developing a model of guilty plea decision-making: Fuzzy-trace theory, gist, and categorical boundaries. Law and Human Behavior, 47(3), 403–421. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000532