Plea bargaining is the cornerstone of the U.S. criminal justice system and the bargaining in the shadow of the trial framework, where the plea reached is driven primarily by the expected sentence arising from a trial, is the convention for applied economists. Criminologists and legal scholars...

The article presents a few issues about the importance and necessity of a court-appointed lawyer in the criminal trial. In order to secure the right to defence, if the suspect or defendant has not appointed a lawyer to represent his/her interests, the judicial body has the obligation to take...

Corporate Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) are contracts negotiated between the federal government and defendants to address allegations of corporate misconduct without going to trial. The agreements are hailed as a model of speedy and efficient law enforcement, but also derided as making...

Perhaps the least sympathetic party in a corporate criminal matter is a corporate entity that has engaged in criminal conduct. If the corporation is large, subject to third party civil actions, and especially in an industry dependent upon a public perception of ethical behavior, a criminal...

In Timbs v. Indiana, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Eighth Amendment's Excessive Fines Clause is an incorporated protection under the Fourteenth Amendment and therefore regulates state and local governments. The unanimous result, wedding liberal and conservative Justices alike, was...

We analyze the disparate effects of a recent California sentencing reform on the arrest, booking, and incarceration rates experienced by California residents from different racial and ethnic groups. In November 2014 California voters passed state proposition 47 that redefined a series of felony...