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Recent punishment and society scholarship has addressed the limits of policy reforms aimed at reducing mass incarceration in the U.S. This work has focused in particular on the political dimensions of penal legal reform and policy-making, and the compromises and shortcomings in those processes. Nearly absent in this scholarship, however, has been empirical and theoretical engagement with the role of front-line prosecutors as facilitators and/or resistors to downsizing efforts. Using the case of the U.S. federal criminal legal system's modest efforts to decrease the system's racially disparate and punitive outcomes, this paper elucidates the fragile nature of such reforms by delineating the critical role that front-line prosecutors play in maintaining punitive approaches. Focusing specifically on federal prosecutorial policy and practices in the Trump era, I draw on a subset of data from an interdisciplinary, multi-methodological project set in distinct federal court jurisdictions in the U.S. to examine how front-line prosecutors were able to quickly reverse course on reform through the use of their uniquely powerful charging and plea-bargaining tools. My findings illustrate how federal prosecutors pursued more low-level defendants, and utilized statutory “hammers,” including mandatory minimums and mandatory enhancements to ensure harsh punishments in a swift return to a war-on-crime.
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This content will become publicly available on April 1, 2026
Demystifying the Plea Process: Investigating Attorney Communications and Client Misconceptions
As the United States has shifted to “a system of pleas,” the role of defense attorneys has swung from trial litigator to plea negotiator. To further investigate how this shift has impacted defense attorneys, we surveyed a nationwide sample (N = 134) to assess the duration and frequency of client meetings, information clients frequently lack and misconceptions they espouse concerning the plea and trial process, and how attorneys convey advice to accept or reject plea offers to clients. The results indicated that defense attorneys spend a significant amount of time meeting with clients (an average of 5.7 meetings for an average of 44.9 minutes). They also cited substantial deficits in criminal defendants’ knowledge of the legal system, as well as many misconceptions regarding legal procedures. Attorneys provided a diversity of responses regarding the most important advice they offer their clients with many mentioning facts related to the case resolution process (56.0%), the direct and collateral consequences associated with a criminal conviction (29.4%), the role of the defense attorney (32.1%), and the importance of the right to silence (24.8%). Further, over half of the attorneys surveyed indicated a general hesitance (54.0%) and others an outright refusal (15.0%) to provide an explicit plea recommendation to their clients. In sum, these findings provide valuable insight into the challenges faced by defense attorneys who must be adviser, negotiator, and apparently, educator. Further, many appear to draw a sharp line between counseling their clients and moving them to a decision.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1844585
- PAR ID:
- 10601192
- Publisher / Repository:
- Western Society of Criminology
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Criminology criminal justice law society
- Volume:
- 26
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2332-886X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 16 to 34
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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