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Fairness and the Willingness to Accept Plea Bargain Offers
Author(s) -
Tor Avishalom,
GazalAyal Oren,
Garcia Stephen M.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of empirical legal studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.529
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1740-1461
pISSN - 1740-1453
DOI - 10.1111/j.1740-1461.2009.01171.x
Subject(s) - plea , culpability , normative , willingness to accept , reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , law and economics , psychology , economics , willingness to pay , social psychology , law , microeconomics , political science , criminology
In contrast with the common assumption in the plea bargaining literature, we show fairness‐related concerns systematically impact defendants' preferences and judgments. In the domain of preferences, innocents are less willing to accept plea offers than guilty defendants and all defendants reject otherwise attractive offers that appear comparatively unfair. We also show that defendants who are uncertain of their culpability exhibit egocentrically‐biased judgments and reject plea offers as if they were innocent. The article concludes by briefly discussing the normative implications of these findings.