Doctoral Dissertation Research: RATIONALES UNDERLYING AND SHAPING PLEA DECISION-MAKING

正如大法官安东尼·M·肯尼迪(Anthony M.Kennedy)在2012年的拉夫勒诉库珀案(Lafler v.Cooper)中代表多数人所写的那样，现实情况是，“今天的刑事司法在很大程度上是一个辩诉体系，而不是一个审判体系”。尽管美国刑事司法系统严重依赖辩诉交易，但辩诉交易裁决的性质仍然难以捉摸。虽然已经有一些有影响力的重要研究就认罪决定过程采访了被告和法院行为者，但这项研究大多是在30至40年前进行的，内容是关于与今天存在的法院制度不同的法院制度。从那时起，关于法院以及辩诉交易的过程和盛行程度的很多方面都发生了变化。该项目开始通过与被告、辩护律师和检察官进行半结构化访谈来填补这一空白，以调查被告如何感知和理解他们在法律系统中导航时面临的选择和迫切需要。这个项目的更广泛的影响是阐明内部(特定于个人)和外部(特定于系统)的理由如何影响辩诉决策，以及对被告理由的感知如何影响检察官的认罪提议和辩护律师对其客户的建议，以及他们彼此之间的谈判策略。本研究的重点是从被告、辩护人和检察官的角度三角分析和检查影响认罪决定的因素和背后的理由。虽然对被告的采访将审查他们围绕他们认罪的特定案件的经历和看法，但辩护律师和检察官将更普遍地接受采访，了解他们对一般被告做出认罪决定的理由的看法，以及这些看法如何影响认罪提议或关于接受提议的建议。所有面谈将是半结构化的，包括用于三组之间比较的平行假设情景，并纳入开放式和封闭式问题，以确保问答结构相似和可比。这些开放式的答复将用归纳和系统的方法加以审查，并将植根于扎根的现象学理论。这将允许观察和记录多种可能的模式、主题和概念，这些模式、主题和概念解释了辩诉交易过程中的可变性。此外，为了使这项研究与几十年前的研究更具概括性和可比性，联合首席调查员还将利用过去与认罪决策相关的研究来开发一种可靠的编码方案，用于编码和分析本研究中的开放式面试回答。调查结果将以一系列从业者和学术文章、报告和会议演示的形式传播，描述认罪决策背后的理由、因素和看法。最终，这项研究将允许进一步审查法律决策，律师-委托人和辩护人-检察官的关系，以及程序正义，因为它涉及到认罪谈判过程的背景

The reality is that "criminal justice today is for the most part a system of pleas, not a system of trials," as Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in Lafler v. Cooper (2012). Despite this heavy reliance on plea bargaining in the U.S. criminal justice system, the nature of plea bargain decisions remains elusive. Although there has been influential and important research in which defendants and court actors were interviewed about the plea decision process, this research was mostly conducted 30 to 40 years ago about a different court system than the one that exists today. Since then, much about courts and the process and prevalence of plea bargaining has changed. This project begins to fill this gap through semi-structured interviews with defendants, defense attorneys, and prosecutors to investigate how defendants perceive and understand the choices and imperatives with which they are faced as they navigate the legal system. The broader impact of this project is to shed light on how internal (individual-specific) and external (system-specific) rationales affect plea decision-making and how perceptions of defendants' rationales can inform the prosecutor's plea offer and the defense attorney's advice to their clients, as well as their negotiating strategies with one another.The focus of this research is to triangulate and examine the factors affecting, and rationales underlying, the plea decision from the points of view of the defendant, defender, and prosecutor. Whereas interviews with defendants will examine their experiences and perceptions surrounding a specific case in which they pled guilty, defense attorneys and prosecutors will be interviewed more generally about their perceptions of generic defendants' rationales for their plea decisions as well as how those perceptions inform either the plea offer or the advice about accepting the offer. All interviews will be semi-structured, include parallel hypothetical scenarios for comparison between the three groups, and incorporate both open- and closed-ended questions to ensure a similar and comparable question-response structure. These open-ended responses will be examined using an inductive and systematic approach, and will be rooted in grounded and phenomenological theories. This will allow for observation and documentation of multiple possible patterns, themes, and concepts that account for variability in plea bargaining processes. In addition, to make this research more generalizable and comparable with research from several decades ago, the co-principal investigator will also use past research related to plea decision-making to develop a reliable coding scheme with which to code and analyze the open-ended interview responses in this study. Findings will be disseminated as a series of practitioner and scholarly articles, reports, and conference presentations portraying the rationales, factors, and perceptions underlying plea decision-making. Ultimately, this research will allow for further examination into legal decision-making, attorney-client and defender-prosecutor relationships, and procedural justice as it relates to contextualizing the plea negotiation process