The Effect of Punishment Severity on Plea Bargaining

This study examines whether criminal suspects facing more severe punishmentsare more likely to go to trial. Sample selection makes it difficult to obtain validproxies for severity; for instance, I expect severity to be positively related to theprosecutors decision to indict, to indict in federal court (versus state court),and to try the suspect. Theoretical and empirical findings indicate that in samplescontaining only indicted, convicted, or tried suspects, reasonable proxies forseverity may be negatively related to actual severity. The assignment of defendantsto judges randomizes the severity of punishment in a manner that isunrelated to sample selection. Thus, by examining the effect of these assignments,I find that a 10-month increase in prison sentences raises trial rates by1 percentage point