Disposing of Misdemeanors: An Empirical Perspective

(Excerpt) This Article will begin by discussing why misdemeanors matter and the importance of examining these cases to better understand how the criminal legal system is functioning or not. Next, in Section III, we will discuss the importance of plea bargaining, both how it works in practice and the concerns surrounding this process. We will then turn, in Section IV, to a discussion of why it matters to have better data so that the players in the system are better informed about how the legal system actually works. Better data contributes to transparency, which can help improve the general public’s perceptions of legitimacy if the system is working well.

The remaining sections of this Article will focus on the New York Pre-Trial Release Data Set. As we will discuss, this dataset is unique. It is publicly available and, to date, includes over 1.3 million cases with 112 variables. Of these cases, 914,521cases are misdemeanors.

Next, this Article will address how administrative data can shed light on criminal process, including plea bargaining. Next, we will analyze the misdemeanor case data. We review the dismissal rate data, which includes the reasons for case dismissals and the differences in dismissal rates across counties and types of criminal cases. This section will also include findings about whether different kinds of lawyers make a difference to case outcomes and data on racial and ethnic disparities.

Finally, we will explore how this data can be used to model how misdemeanor cases are processed, including how it can better inform practicing lawyers about the types of cases where they might consider, for example, recommending that their clients not accept a plea deal until much later in the process.