THE JURY IS IN: THE IMPACT OF PENNSYLVANIA SENTENCING REFORM ON PLEA BARGAINING

Abstract

In recent years, protests, political movements, and academic research have all highlighted many of the systemic issues within the United States criminal justice system, from violent policing to racial bias in incarceration rates. However, there has been substantially less focus on plea bargains, even though guilty pleas rather than trials are responsible for 95 percent of sentences. Using data from 2008 to 2019 from Pennsylvania’s Commission on Sentencing, I examine three key questions. 1) Who is offered and accepts plea bargains? 2) How does Pennsylvania’s system of judicial retention elections interact with modes of disposition? 3) How have plea bargains changed over time, including in response to three key reforms enacted in Pennsylvania? I show that one’s tendency to plead guilty is affected by legally irrelevant characteristics such as race and sex (with white and female defendants much more likely to take pleas than male and Black. Defendants) but these gaps have been shrinking in recent years. I also find that unlike competitive judicial reelections, retention elections don’t motivate judges to impose more harsh sentences. Finally, I discover that all three of Pennsylvania’s reforms targeted both guilty pleas and trials, decreasing both the average length of sentence and the trial penalty.