Reducing False Guilty Pleas and Wrongful Convictions through Exoneree Compensation
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-2016
Journal Title
Journal of Law and Economics
ISSN
0022-2186
DOI
10.1086/684686
Abstract
A great concern with plea bargains is that they may induce innocent individuals to plead guilty to crimes they have not committed. In this article, we identify schemes that reduce the number of innocent pleas without affecting guilty individuals’ plea-bargaining incentives. Large compensations for exonerees reduce expected costs associated with wrongful determinations of guilt in trial and thereby reduce the number of innocent pleas. Any distortion in guilty individuals’ incentives to take plea bargains caused by these compensations can be offset by a small increase in the discounts offered for pleading guilty. Although there are many statutory-reform proposals for increasing exoneree compensation, no one has yet noted this desirable separating effect of compensations. We argue that such reforms are likely to achieve this result without causing losses in deterrence.
First Page
173
Last Page
189
Num Pages
17
Volume Number
59
Issue Number
1
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Recommended Citation
Murat C. Mungan & Jonathan Klick,
Reducing False Guilty Pleas and Wrongful Convictions through Exoneree Compensation,
59
J. L. & Econ.
173
(2016).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/1868