The Plea Bargaining Blog

I recently posted my article entitled "White Collar Over-Criminalization: Deterrence, Plea Bargaining, and the Loss of Innocence," to SSRN for free download.  Below is the article's full abstract.  A free copy of the article is available for download by clicking here .  Abstract White Collar Over-Criminalization: Deterrence, Plea Bargaining, and the Loss of Innocence , 101 Kentucky Law Journal 723 (2013). Overcriminalization takes many forms and impacts the American criminal justice system in varying ways. This article focuses on a select portion of this phenomenon by examining two types of overcriminalization prevalent in white collar criminal law. The first type of over criminalization discussed in this article is Congress’s propensity for increasing the maximum criminal penalties for white collar offenses in an effort to punish financial criminals more harshly while simultaneously deterring others. The second type of overcriminalization addressed is Congress...

I recently posted my article entitled "Pleading Innocents: Laboratory Evidence of Plea Bargaining's Innocence Problem" to SSRN for free download.  Below is the article's full abstract.  A free copy of the article is available for download by clicking here . Abstract Vanessa A. Edkins and Lucian E. Dervan, Pleading Innocents:   Laboratory Evidence of Plea Bargaining’s Innocence Problem , 21 Current Research in Social Psychology 14 (2013) (peer reviewed) We investigated plea bargaining by making students actually guilty or innocent of a cheating offense and varying the sentence that they would face if found ‘guilty’ by a review board. As hypothesized, guilty students were more likely than innocent students to accept a plea deal (i.e., admit guilt and lose credit; akin to accepting a sentence of probation) (Chi-square=8.63, p<.01) but we did not find an effect of sentence severity. Innocent students, though not as likely to plead as guilty students, showed an...

I recently posted my new article entitled "International White Collar Crime and Deferred Prosecution Agreements" on SSRN for free download.  The article examines deferred prosecution agreements in the U.S. and U.K., including close analysis of new rules regarding the use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements in the U.K.   Deferred prosecution agreements (“DPAs”) are negotiated settlements of criminal investigations entered into between the government and the investigated entity.   Typically, such agreements require an entity to admit wrongdoing, pay a substantial fine, and engage in remedial measures.   If an entity succeeds in satisfying the requirements of a DPA, the government agrees to dismiss any criminal charges that have been filed against the entity related to the matter.   While distinct from traditional plea bargaining because the defendant corporation does not enter a plea of guilty before a court, there is much overlap between these two types of negot...

I recently posted my new article entitled "The Quest for Finality: Five Stories of White Collar Criminal Prosecution" on SSRN for free download.  The article examines various negative outgrowths of our quest for finality in the criminal justice system, including our tendency to value finality over accuracy.  In valuing finality over accuracy, plea bargaining stands center stage.  Though this article focuses on the larger issue of "finality," it includes a lengthy discussion of plea bargaining and its role in our criminal justices system and might be of interest to readers of the blog. Below is the article's full abstract.  A free copy of the article is available for download by clicking here . Abstract Lucian E. Dervan, The Quest for Finality: Five Stories of White Collar Criminal Prosecution , 4 Wake Forest Journal of Law & Policy 91 (2014) (symposium article). In this symposium article, Professor Dervan examines the issue of finalit...