Analysis of decision criteria in military plea negotiations

This research examines plea bargain decision making by analysis of 535 case records in five U.S. Army, Europe, court-martial jurisdictions for one twelve-month period in 1977–1978. The paper reports on a study of the impact of eleven variables on three pleading outcomes. Using discriminant function analysis, the pleading variables are defined as consisting of three groups (negotiated guilty, non-negotiated guilty, and not guilty), or two groups (guilty, not guilty) (negotiated guilty, all other cases). The results indicate that the independent variables are not too successful in separating the groups, especially the smallest group of non-negotiated guilty pleas; the same small proportion of variance is explained regardless of how one splits the sample and defines the number of groups in the discriminant model. In each analysis, the number of charges stands out as having the most discriminating power. The study's findings are compared with Feeley's, and Eisenstein and Jacob's conceptual perspectives of court processing. Application of their approaches suggests that organizational and legal factors produce the distinctive pattern of plea negotiation in the military.