A new explanation for the failure of plea bargaining is provided. It is shown that a retention agent (i.e. median voter) can use convictions at trial as a signal of the quality of a prosecutor. This encourages a public prosecutor to take cases to trial even when both social welfare and her...

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...

Plea bargaining dominates the U.S. criminal justice system and has garnered calls to reduce its prevalence. In 2013 Alaska's Attorney General acted banning a practice known as sentencing bargaining where the prosecutor negotiates with the defense over the length of the incarceration. I provide...