Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
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-bargain 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 distortions in guilty individuals' incentives to take plea bargains caused by these compensations can be off-set by a small increase in the discounts offered for pleading guilty. Although there are many statutory reform proposals for increasing exoneration compensations, no one has yet noted this desirable separating effect of exoneree compensations. We argue that such reforms are likely to achieve this result without causing deterrence losses.
Keywords
Exoneration, Compensation, Wrongful Convictions, Judicial Errors, Deterrence
Publication Title
Journal of Law & Economics
Repository Citation
Mungan, Murat C. and Klick, Jonathan, "Reducing False Guilty Pleas and Wrongful Convictions Through Exoneree Compensation" (2016). All Faculty Scholarship. 1440.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/1440
Included in
Courts Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Law and Economics Commons, Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons
Publication Citation
59 J. L. & Econ. 173 (2016)