Toward a Comparative Economics of Plea Bargaining

We attempt to open a path to the comparative analysis of criminal procedure by superimposing the efficiency principle onto an adversarial system characterized by an aversion to false convictions and an inquisitorial system characterized by a desire to justly punish the guilty. We begin with a general model of plea bargaining, embed it in a larger framework that addresses the costs of adjudication, the value of punishing the guilty and the costs of false convictions, and then link the desirability of plea bargaining and compulsory prosecution to the weights given these costs and benefits in the objective function. We examine the judicial endorsement of plea bargaining in the United States and the debate over European analogs to plea bargaining in light of the model, and conclude that plea bargaining will increase social welfare in adversarial systems but not in inquisitorial ones.     

辩诉交易中国化应予缓行——以契约观为视野

契约观念是辩诉交易制度生成与发展的文化基础,是这一制度在争议不断的责难声中仍然弥久不衰的内在动力。只有在弘扬契约精神、尊重社会价值多元化的国度,才能培育和支持辩诉交易制度的运行。从契约观的视角不难看出,辩诉交易中国化应予缓行;其在中国的移植与引进,当须诸方面促就国人契约观念之积淀。     

刑事诉讼中的“审辩交易”现象研究

刑事诉讼中的"审辩交易"是一种客观存在的现象,从法官的视角出发,可以将其分为三种类型,即基于事实疑罪、法律疑罪以及案外因素进行的交易。压力驱动与大权在握的法官,在主动与被动之间的被告方,作为旁观者的公诉方以及被和解或者不知情的被害方的理性选择促成了"审辩交易"的达成。审判权力行政化的运行机制、不合理的诉讼真实理念、案件分流机制的匮乏以及不当的绩效考评机制导致法官承担巨大的压力,法官选择进行交易是转移压力的一种方式。目前,"审辩交易"的存在有一定的合理性,但也存在大量的弊端,要改变这种压力后置型的司法模式,需要对导致"审辩交易"现象发生的诸多因素进行改革。     

Bargaining Between Rebel Groups and the Outside Option of Violence

Although military cooperation among rebel groups in multi-party civil wars could help rebels defeat or extract concessions from an incumbent government, violent conflict among rebel groups is empirically prevalent. Why do rebel groups in multi-party civil wars choose to fight one another? This article models the strategic dilemma facing rebel groups in multi-party civil wars as an alternating-offer bargaining game of incomplete information with an outside option. The game-theoretic model explores the relationship between the status quo distribution of power among rebel groups, the costs of fighting, and the likelihood that one rebel group will opt to unilaterally end bargaining over a set of goods, such as access to supply routes, natural resources, and control over civilian populations. We show that the likelihood of violent conflict between rebel groups is lowest when the status quo distribution of benefits reflects the existing distribution of power.     

Party Size and Portfolio Payoffs: The Proportional Allocation of Ministerial Posts in Coalition Governments

Over 30 years ago, Eric Browne and Mark Franklin demonstrated that parties in a coalition tend to receive portfolio payoffs in almost perfect proportionality to their seat share. Even though this result has been confirmed in several studies, few researchers have asked what the underlying mechanism is that explains why parties receive a proportional payoff. The aim of this paper is to investigate the causal mechanism linking party size and portfolio payoffs. To fulfil this aim, a small-n analysis is performed. By analysing the predictions from a statistical analysis of all post-war coalition governments in 14 Western European countries, two predicted cases are selected, the coalitions that formed after the 1976 Swedish election and the 1994 German election. In these case studies two hypotheses are evaluated: that the proportional distribution of ministerial posts is the result of a social norm, and that parties obtain payoffs according to their bargaining strength. The results give no support to the social norm hypothesis. Instead, it is suggested that proportionality serves as a bargaining convention for the actors involved, thus rendering proportional payoffs more likely.     

Measuring and Explaining Charge Bargaining

Charge bargaining is a potentially important form of discretion in criminal sentencing that is obscured in many studies of sentencing outcomes. Our procedure to measure the difference in sentencing outcomes caused by plea bargain emphasizes the amount, in months, that the sentence length is reduced. Using this measure, we compare prosecutorial discretion across counties in two different states. We conclude that charge bargaining plays an empirically important role in determining sentencing outcomes. Furthermore, we find that measuring the distance (in months of prison time) moved during a charge bargain may provide a very different estimate of the discretion than is given by the rate of bargaining, which is the usual measure used. Although the rate of charge bargaining was higher in the voluntary guidelines state, its impact on sentences was greater in the presumptive guidelines jurisdiction, as predicted by Reitz (1998). We further observe a dramatic difference in predictions from shifting the case characteristics underlying the summary measure. This result reveals that distributional differences (either due to the underlying criminal activity or due to the overall level of severity of punishment) can easily obscure the inferences necessary for understanding the operation of the systems. Our finding of differential charge bargaining in these two jurisdictions should provide a caution when comparing the results of studies of disparity in sentencing across jurisdiction types.

关于集体协商中强制性行政规范的设定问题

通过在地方性法规和行政规章中设置约束性惩戒性的行政规范,难以解决集体协商中拒绝或拖延集体协商问题,也不利于集体劳动关系的和谐稳定及健康发展。完善规范建立在“劳工三权”基础上的集体协商机制,利用市场机制和法律制度,协调劳动关系主体相互间的利益关系,化解矛盾冲突,这不仅是劳动者与工会的最佳选择,也应当是政府确立和发展和谐稳定劳动关系的途径和目标。     

辩诉交易在我国适用的困境——以美国辩诉交易的基础为视角

美国的辩诉交易是为了应对高犯罪率、刑事案件大量积压以及普通程序比较繁琐的弊端而产生的,它的产生有其特定的理论和制度基础。我国不能盲目移植美国的辩诉交易制度,应结合我国的具体情况分析。     

浅析辩诉交易制度及其在我国的确立

辩诉交易是美国刑事诉讼文化的重要组成部分。有高效、实用、民主等特色。当今世界各国都面临着社会犯罪压力巨大和司法资源有限的两难处境，众多国家，包括一部分大陆法系国家转而借鉴美国的辩诉交易制度，并在实践工作中取得了良好效果。在社会转型时期，中国具备了适用辩诉交易制度的司法环境，建立一套适应我国国情的行之有效的、具有中国特色的辩诉交易制度是极为重要的。     

Incentives, criminal defence lawyers and plea bargaining

Plea bargaining has become a central feature of criminal procedure in Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions. This paper explores an area seldom discussed in the economic literature on plea bargaining: the influence of the defence lawyer's fee contract on the terms of the bargain. In particular, it uses data from one jurisdiction of the impact on case trajectories of changes in publicly funded defence lawyers’ contracts to test the proposition that the nature of the lawyer's contract influences how cases are managed. An event study methodology on a pooled time-series cross-section data set of case trajectories before and after the change in the nature of the contract is used to examine whether the new payment regime significantly changed the trajectories of cases through the summary criminal justice system. Overall the results seem to suggest that the behaviour of defence lawyers may be influenced by financial incentives. This implies that the terms of plea bargains reached between prosecution and defence lawyers may be affected by the defence lawyer's remuneration contract. Consequently, the authors conclude that the role of defence lawyers has been under-researched in the literature on the economics of plea bargaining.