Prosecutorial Resources, Plea Bargaining, and the Decision to Go to Trial

Posted: 18 Dec 2000

See all articles by Scott Baker

Scott Baker

Washington University in St. Louis - School of Law

Claudio Mezzetti

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill - Department of Economics

Abstract

This paper examines the strategic interaction between a defendant and a prosecutor during the plea bargaining process. A four-stage game of incomplete information is developed where the defendant's guilt or innocence is private information but the amount of resources available to the prosecutor is common knowledge. The basic result of the paper is that equilibrium is semi-separating; the plea offer is accepted by a proportion of the guilty defendants and is rejected by all of the innocent defendants and the remaining guilty defendants. In this model, and increase in the resources available to the prosecutor increases the proportion of guilty defendants who accept plea offers. Although the prosecutor is unable to generate complete separation of the guilty and innocent defendants through the plea bargaining process, prosecutorial resources are beneficial from a societal standpoint.

JEL Classification: K42

Suggested Citation

Baker, Scott A. and Mezzetti, Claudio, Prosecutorial Resources, Plea Bargaining, and the Decision to Go to Trial. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 149-167, 2001, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=251699

Scott A. Baker (Contact Author)

Washington University in St. Louis - School of Law ( email )

Campus Box 1120
St. Louis, MO 63130
United States

Claudio Mezzetti

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill - Department of Economics ( email )

Chapel Hill, NC 27599
United States
919-966-5377 (Phone)
919-966-4986 (Fax)

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