Does the Threat of the Death Penalty Affect Plea Bargaining in Murder Cases?: Evidence from New York's 1995 Reinstatement of Capital Punishment

• Autores: Ilyana Kuziemko
• Localización: American law and economics review, ISSN 1465-7252, Vol. 8, Nº. 1, 2006, págs. 116-142
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article investigates whether the death penalty encourages defendants charged with potentially capital crimes to plead guilty in exchange for lesser sentences. I exploit a natural experiment in New York State: the 1995 reinstatement of capital punishment, coupled with the public refusal of some prosecutors to pursue death sentences (N.Y. Penal Law 125.25 [McKinney 1975]). Using individual-level data on all felony arrests in the state between 1985 and 1998, I find the death penalty leads defendants to accept plea bargains with harsher terms, but does not increase defendants' overall propensity to plead guilty. A differences-in-differences analysis of a national cross-section of homicide defendants confirms these results.