Case Adjudication as Local Practice: A Follow-up Study using Multiple Methods

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Criminal courts that operate under the same formal law and policy often develop their own norms and practices, resulting in very different kinds of justice outcomes depending upon where a case is adjudicated. And when formal legal policies change, the reforms generally get implemented in distinct and divergent ways by local court actors, sometimes in ways inconsistent with policy goals. This project capitalizes upon recent major policy changes imposed in the federal criminal system by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to examine how different court "communities" have responded to the changes. Specifically, new policies have been developed urging prosecutors to focus on certain kinds of federal crimes, and that require prosecutors across the country to maximize the potential punishment. While the DOJ policies aim for standardized prosecutorial practices across the diverse federal district courts, prior research suggests that local courts will vary in how they translate these directives into action. The study builds directly upon the PI's previous NSF-funded research that examined jurisdictional differences in adjudication strategies in federal court, using both qualitative field methods and quantitative methods. The project revisits the same research sites (4 geographically and demographically diverse federal districts) to assess whether and how the current DOJ policy impacts caseload characteristics (including defendant demography) and adjudication practices and outcomes, with a focus on how formal top-down policy is translated into localized, on-the-ground legal action. Using interviews, observations, and administrative data from the federal courts, the project tests three related hypotheses: 1) Despite the return to policies that aim to control local practices through top-down mandates, adaptations will be localized in practice. Between-district variations will continue to be evident in four distinct sets of practices: case selection; prosecutorial charging practices; terms and modes of plea agreements; and formal sentencing practices. 2) Within-district, demographic composition of the caseload, the application of prosecutorial-controlled sentencing tools, and sentence lengths will change as a function of temporal period, but local adjudication norms will temper such change. 3) The degree of change in local practice norms will be greater in the current policy period (beginning May, 2017) than the previous one (2010-2017) because the current policy authorizes increased punishment for defendants and includes local compliance mechanisms.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.