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Statistics about the court system and its processes
On this page, the Prison Policy Initiative has curated all of the research about the court system and its processes that we know of. For research on other criminal justice topics, see our Research Library homepage.
(New)State Courts Play a Key Role in American LifePew Charitable Trusts, October, 2024“State courts in the U.S. handle approximately 66 million cases each year--more than twice the annual number of arrests (8 million) and traffic stops (20 million), combined.”
Evaluating Bail Reform in New York's Justice CourtsThe John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, January, 2024“In cases targeted by bail reform, sentence severity declined. Among misdemeanors resulting in conviction, jail sentences declined from 11% in 2018 to 6% in 2021.”
Under-resourced and Ignored: Indigent Defense in Schuylkill County Wren Collective, January, 2024“We found an underfunded indigent defense system that lacks the support for enough lawyers to represent clients, including at bail hearings, for immigration consultations, and adequate technology for attorneys to properly do their jobs.”
Restoring and Rebuilding: Indigent Defense in Gwinnett County Wren Collective, January, 2024“In 2022, the county had 132 lawyers willing to take court appointments. Now, that number is 80. Those 80 lawyers are responsible for 13,000 cases/year. There are only 8 lawyers eligible to handle murder cases, which have a potential punishment of death...”
Death By Design: Part 1 The Wren Collective, December, 2023“In all 28 Harris County capital cases we reviewed, trial lawyers failed to uncover relevant evidence.”
Death By Design: Part 2 The Wren Collective, December, 2023“Every single attorney we interviewed in Harris County told us that there were simply not enough well-trained mitigation specialists for hire, especially those trained in mental health.”
The Failure of Gideon and the Promise of Public DefenseCenter for Justice Innovation, November, 2023“In essence, fast pleas, typically at the expense of what is best for [a flat-fee attorney's] client, act as the counter to offset low pay.”
Indigent Criminal Defense and Commonwealth's AttorneysVirginia's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, November, 2023“The number of attorneys serving as court-appointed defense attorneys in Virginia has declined since FY13, especially during the last few years. Participation has declined by more than half, from nearly 4,000 attorneys in FY13 to about 1,900 in FY23.”
Gideon at 60: A Snapshot of State Public Defense Systems and Paths to System Reform National Institute of Justice Office for Access to Justice, November, 2023“Two-thirds of states (34) do not have full statewide oversight of public defense, meaning they do not set standards or monitor whether people receive counsel in all cases where they have a right to it.”
Advancing the Use of Data in Prosecution: What We Measure Matters Fair and Just Prosecution, October, 2023“Although a great deal of progress has been made to center data and research in public discourse, few jurisdictions have chosen to devote sufficient resources to cultivate robust data capacity in prosecutors' offices.”
High stakes mistakes: How courts respond to "failure to appear" Prison Policy Initiative, August, 2023“We find that, on balance, "failure to appear" policies are about punishment, not improving appearance rates.”
Systemic Failure To Appear in CourtLindsay Graef, Sandra G. Mason, Aurelie Ouss, and Megan T. Stevenson, August, 2023“Between 2010 and 2020, an essential witness or lawyer failed to appear for at least one hearing in 53% of all cases, compared to a 19% FTA rate for defendants [in Philadelphia, Pa.].”
The Legislative Primer Series on Front-End Justice: Deflection and Diversion National Conference of State Legislatures, August, 2023“Thirty-one states have made significant amendments to, or created new, pretrial diversion programs since 2017.”
Highlights from 2020-2022 Criminal Summons DataData Collaborative for Justice, June, 2023“In 2022, Black people were 9.10 times more likely than white people to be issued a summons, and Hispanic people were 6.78 times more likely to be issued a summons.”
Inequitable and Undemocratic: A Research Brief on Jury Exclusion in Massachusetts and a Multipronged Approach to Dismantle It Katy Naples-Mitchell and Haruka Margaret Braun, Roundtable on Racial Disparities in Massachusetts Criminal Courts, June, 2023“A conservative estimate of 95,000 people are disqualified from jury service [in Massachusetts] because of a felony conviction within seven years, a pending felony charge, or current incarceration at any given time.”
Criminal Convictions in New York State, 1980-2021Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College, May, 2023“Relative to their representation in the residential population, the conviction rate in 2019 for Black people statewide was 3.1 times higher than for white people.”
Understanding Court Absence and Reframing "Failure To Appear" in Lake County, ILJustice System Partners, May, 2023“90% of individuals were not aware of either the Public Defender or Pretrial Services court reminder notification system. Of those who were not aware of this system, 90% said they would opt-in if offered again.”
Cost of Discretion: Judicial Decision-Making, Pretrial Detention, and Public Safety in New York City Scrutinize, QSIDE Institute, and NYU School of Law, May, 2023“The estimated impact of these judges' disproportionately carceral decisions over 2.5 years amounts to 580 additional people detained, 154 additional years of pretrial detention, and over $77 million of additional costs borne by New York City taxpayers.”
Evidence Rules for DecarcerationErin Collins, April, 2023“As we envision a path towards decarceration, we must consider the barriers created by evidence rules, even if defendants often are effectively dissuaded from exercising their right to trial and the rules are never applied.”
The Poor Reform Prosecutor: So Far From the State Capital, So Close to the Suburbs John F. Pfaff, March, 2023“In many ways, the county is a distinctly awkward jurisdiction for those who hope reform-minded prosecutors can play a significant role in reversing our decades-long investment in mass punishment and mass incarceration.”
Coping With Limited Prosecutorial Resources: An Assessment of the Case Processing and Community Impact From...Prosecutors and Staff in a Southeastern County Paywall :(Christi Metcalfe and Joseph B. Kuhns, March, 2023“Results suggested that Mecklenburg County...suffered more broadly from criminal justice funding challenges, and faced staffing shortages and turnover that were perceived as affecting case dispositions, office morale, and community trust.”
Stacked: Where Criminal Charge Stacking Happens -- And Where it Doesn't Harvard Law Review, March, 2023“Some states charge more offenses per defendant and do so more often than the federal government.”
Persevere: Our Ongoing Fight for an Equal Justice Judiciary The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, February, 2023“Having judges who reflect and represent all of us also increases public trust in the judiciary and improves judicial decision-making.”
Moving Justice Forward: A Blueprint for the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice Center for Justice Innovation, January, 2023“Stakeholders expressed great interest in piloting and eventually expanding the use of restorative justice practices in local courts.”
Preempting Progress: States Take Aim at Local Prosecutors Jorge Camacho et al, January, 2023“In the past three state legislative sessions, at least 28 preemption bills have been proposed in 16 states to undermine anti-carceral uses of prosecutorial discretion.”
Federal Justice Statistics, 2021Bureau of Justice Statistics, December, 2022“U.S. attorneys declined to prosecute 22% of matters concluded in FY 2021. The cases most likely to be declined were property fraud (45%) and regulatory public order (44%) offenses.”
A Racial Disparity Across New York That Is Truly JarringNew York Civil Liberties Union, December, 2022“In Manhattan -- one of the wealthiest and least equal places in the country -- courts convicted Black people of felonies and misdemeanors at a rate 21 times greater than that of white people over the past two decades.”
Data on Adjudication of Misdemeanor Offenses: Results from a Feasibility Study Abt Associates and Bureau of Justice Statistics, November, 2022“By focusing on misdemeanors, BJS is addressing a substantial gap in criminal justice statistics, as very little empirical information exists about misdemeanor charges filed in state, county, and municipal courts.”
Greening Criminal Legal Deserts in Rural TexasDeason Criminal Justice Reform Center, October, 2022“The shortage of rural criminal lawyers is dire. Fewer than 1% of Texas criminal lawyers have their practice in a rural county.”
Justice Delayed: The Complex System of Delays in Criminal Court Kat Albrecht et al., July, 2022“This Article demonstrates not only that case delay is a significant social and legal problem, but also that the leadership of the Circuit Court...[must rethink] the way in which Cook Count's criminal courts conduct business.”
At What Cost? Findings from an Examination into the Imposition of Public Defense System Fees National Legal Aid & Defender Association, July, 2022“In the overwhelming majority of states, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel does not mean that counsel for those who cannot afford it is provided free of charge.”
No Justice, No Pleas: Subverting Mass Incarceration Through Defendant Collective Action Andrew Manuel Crespo, April, 2022“Courts and prosecutors simply do not have the resources to sustain mass incarceration while affording everyone accused of a crime the constitutionally guaranteed right to a trial.”
The Hidden Costs of Pretrial Detention RevisitedChristopher Lowenkamp, March, 2022“There is no observable "deterrent effect" of pretrial detention, and in fact there is a consistent "criminogenic effect" of pretrial detention on rearrest.”(This report follows up on Lowenkamp's 2013 report, The Hidden Costs of Pretrial Detention, which also examined jail admissions in Kentucky.)
Reimagining JudgingNancy Gertner and the Square One Project, January, 2022“Judges are not alone in resisting reform-- some prosecutors, police, politicians, and even the media share responsibility. But in many ways judicial resistance to change is more difficult to address, clothed as it is in citations to precedent...”
Justice in Decision-Making: Studying Racial & Ethnic Disparities in the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance, October, 2021“While our analysis showed that case processing in the Brooklyn DA's office resulted in fewer racial and ethnic disparities than expected overall, there were more notable disparities within specific offense types or charges.”
A New Approach: A Prosecutor's Guide to Advancing a Public Health Response to Drug Use Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College, September, 2021“With robust enforcement powers and political influence, prosecutors have a unique opportunity to improve our society's response to drug use while minimizing the harms of the legal system.”
The Challenge of Imposing Just Sentences Under Mandatory Minimum Statutes: A Qualitative Study of Judicial Perceptions Paywall :(Esther Nir and Siyu Liu, July, 2021“[Judges] perceive that mandatory minimums often strip away the flexibility they need to craft appropriate sentences in individual cases, leading to punishments that are unduly harsh.”
Due Process in the Time of COVID: Defenders as First Responders in a Juvenile Court System Struggling with the COVID-19 Pandemic National Juvenile Defender Center, March, 2021“The shift to technology-based communications and remote hearings threatens young people's constitutional rights, including fundamental aspects of effective legal representation, due process, and access to courts.”
Racial Equity and Criminal Justice Risk AssessmentUrban Institute, March, 2021“Practitioners and policymakers must determine how (or whether) to balance the use of risk assessment as a component of evidence-based practice with pursuing goals of reducing racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system.”
The New York State Trial Penalty: The Constitutional Right to Trial Under Attack National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, March, 2021“By 1996 and every year after, 98% to 99% of misdemeanor convictions were obtained by plea. If someone is convicted in New York State, whether of a felony or a misdemeanor, it is overwhelmingly likely that they were convicted by plea rather than at trial.”
Pleading for Justice: Bullpen Therapy, Pre-Trial Detention, and Plea Bargains in American Courts Paywall :(Amy E. Lerman, Ariel Lewis Green, and Patricio Dominguez, March, 2021“In a national sample, defendants held in custody pre-trial are significantly more likely to enter a guilty plea, all else equal.”
Pandemic Caseloads Highlights: Court filings and dispositions 2019-2020 Court Statistics Project, March, 2021“While the number of case filings is expected to return to normal in criminal, traffic, and juvenile over the course of 2021, no surge in cases is expected.”
Felony Case Delay in New York City: Lessons from a Pilot Project in Brooklyn Center for Court Innovation, March, 2021“Despite the constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial, in 2019, for indicted felonies, New York City only met the state's standard for a six-month resolution in about a third of cases.”
The Evolving Science on Implicit Bias: An Updated Resource for the State Court Community National Center for State Courts, March, 2021“Ultimately, judicial leadership must determine the goals of institutional efforts to address systemic and implicit biases.”
In the Shadows: A Review of the Research on Plea Bargaining Vera Institute of Justice, September, 2020“Researchers estimate that more than 90% of criminal cases that end in conviction are the result of plea bargaining, a low-visibility, off-the-record, and informal process that usually occurs far from open court.”
Government Misconduct and Convicting the Innocent: The Role of Prosecutors, Police and Other Law Enforcement National Registry of Exonerations, September, 2020“More than a third of all exonerations included misconduct by police officers, [and] nearly as many involved misconduct by prosecutors.”
Institutionalizing inequality in the courts: Decomposing racial and ethnic disparities in detention, conviction, and sentencing Paywall :(Marisa Omori and Nick Petersen, September, 2020“Our findings indicate that inequality is, in part, institutionalized through legal case factors, suggesting these factors are not "race neutral" but instead racialized and contribute to inequalities in court outcomes.”
Models of Prosecutor-Led Diversion Programs in the United States and BeyondKay L. Levine and Ronald F. Wright, May, 2020“Prosecutor-led diversion programs create the greatest risk of abuse, because other governmental actors are not necessary to resolve a case. The prosecutor might operate the diversion program in a way that widens the net of social control...”
Justice Diseased is Justice Denied: Coronavirus, Court Closures, and Criminal Trials Ryan Shymansky, May, 2020“Courts closing their doors to the public and delaying jury trials are doing so for admirable reasons...Yet these reasons alone do not render the Sixth Amendment meaningless.”
Do Public Defender Resources Matter? The Effect of Public Defender and Support Staff Caseloads on the Incarceration of Felony Defendants Aaron Gottlieb and Kelsey Arnold, April, 2020“Results suggest that felony defendants in counties with higher public defender and support staff caseloads are more likely to be detained pretrial and that felony defendants in counties with smaller support staff caseloads receive shorter incarceration.”
National Study of Prosecutor ElectionsUNC School of Law, January, 2020“Although most prosecutor elections are uncontested, most voters tend to live in jurisdictions that are more likely to give them a choice.”
The Problem of Problem-Solving CourtsErin Collins, November, 2019“They also reveal a new problem with the model itself - its entrenchment creates resistance to alternatives that might truly reform the system.”
Rhetoric, Not Reform: Prosecutors & Pretrial Practices in Suffolk, Middlesex, and Berkshire Counties CourtWatch MA, October, 2019“Prosecutors in Massachusetts may talk about reform and decarceration, but the limited available data suggest their practices don't live up to their rhetoric.”
A Fair Fight: Achieving Indigent Defense Resource Parity Brennan Center for Justice, September, 2019“Chronic underfunding has led to drastic resource disparities between prosecutors and defenders, undermining the very basis of our criminal legal system.”
Are a Disproportionate Number of Federal Judges Former Government Advocates?The Cato Institute, September, 2019“The key takeaway is that the federal judiciary is massively tilted in favor of former prosecutors over former criminal defense attorneys, and in favor of advocates for government more generally over advocates for individuals in cases against government.”
The Right to Counsel in Wayne County, Michigan: Evaluation of Assigned Counsel Services in the Third Judicial Circuit Sixth Amendment Center, August, 2019“Every aspect of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is impaired.”
Confirmation Bias and Other Systemic Causes of Wrongful Convictions: A Sentinel Events Perspective Kim Rossmo and Joycelyn Pollock, July, 2019“Detectives must minimize the risk of error by accurately assessing evidence reliability and avoiding premature shifts to suspect-based investigations. Resolving issues of cognitive bias and avoiding logic/analytic mistakes are equally important.”
Misdemeanor AppealsNancy J. King and Michael Heise, July, 2019(Authors found that appellate courts review no more than eight in 10,000 misdemeanor convictions, and disturb only one conviction or sentence out of every 10,000 misdemeanor judgments.)
When Music Takes the Stand: A Content Analysis of How Courts Use and Misuse Rap Lyrics in Criminal Cases Erin Lutes, James Purdon, and Henry F. Fradella, May, 2019“The analyses demonstrate that rap evidence is routinely admitted against defendants in criminal proceedings, even in cases in which the prejudicial effect of such evidence clearly outweighs its probative value.”
Report on the Bronx 120 Mass "Gang" ProsecutionBabe Howell and Priscilla Bustamante, April, 2019“The Bronx 120 indictments appear not only to be overbroad and unfair, but they seem profoundly unwise.”
Testifying while black: An experimental study of court reporter accuracy in transcription of African American English Taylor Jones, Jessica Rose Kalbfeld, Ryan Hancock, and Robin Clark, 2019“Here, we demonstrate that Philadelphia court reporters consistently fail to meet this level of transcription accuracy when confronted with mundane examples of spoken African American English.”
Orleans Criminal District Court, Magistrate Court, & Municipal Court: 2017 Review Court Watch NOLA, May, 2018“This report explores the topics of constitutional rights and the experience of both victims and the public at large in the Orleans Parish criminal courts and the larger criminal justice system during 2017.”
Exonerations in the United States Before 1989National Registry of Exonerations, March, 2018“This year we have added stories and data about 369 earlier exonerations, from 1820 through 1988.”
Exonerations in 2017The National Registry of Exonerations, March, 2018“The National Registry of Exonerations has recorded 139 exonerations in 2017.”
Exonerations in the United States Before 1989National Registry of Exonerations, March, 2018“This year we have added stories and data about 369 earlier exonerations, from 1820 through 1988.”
New data: The rise of the "prosecutor politician" Prison Policy Initiative, July, 2017“Shugerman argues that the prosecutor's office has become a "stepping stone for higher office... with dramatic consequences in American criminal law and mass incarceration."”
Judicial Politics and Sentencing DecisionsAlma Cohen and Crystal S. Yang, June, 2017“Exploiting the random assignment of cases to judges, we find that Republican appointed judges sentence black defendants to longer prison terms than similar whites compared to Democratic appointed judges.”
Exonerations in 2016: The National Registry of Exonerations The National Registry of Exonerations, University of Michigan Law School, March, 2017“A record 94 exonerations in 2016 were cases in which no crime actually occurred.”
A Survey of Prosecutorial Diversion in IllinoisCenter for Health and Justice at TASC, March, 2017“As a growing field, there are many opportunities for improvement in diversion practices--in how programs are designed, implemented, and evaluated; in how data are collected and shared; and in ensuring that community services are available and accessible.”
Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United StatesNational Registry of Exonerations, University of Michigan Law School, March, 2017“Innocent black murder suspects, especially those who are falsely convicted...are additional victims of murders committed by others. Those who have been exonerated spent on average more than 14 years in prison before they were released.”
Testing The Impact of Criminal Jury Instructions on Verdicts: A Conceptual Replication Columbia Law Review, March, 2017“Mock jurors who were instructed “not to search for doubt” but instead “to search for the truth” convicted at a significantly higher rate than mock jurors who were properly instructed on reasonable doubt.”
Right to Counsel Services in the 50 States: An Indigent Defense Reference Guide for Policymakers Sixth Amendment Center, March, 2017“The variations amongst how states deal with the Sixth Amendment does not stop at funding and oversight. The number of structural approaches to providing lawyers to the poor is great.”
Sentencing Outcomes in U.S. District Courts: Can Offenders' Educational Attainment Guard Against Prevalent Criminal Stereotypes? Travis W. Franklin, Sam Houston State University, February, 2017“[C]ourt actors may be less concerned (or not at all concerned) with factors typically linked to perceptions of dangerousness (e.g., race, ethnicity, age, sex, detention status) when dealing with offenders of higher educational status.”
Emotional Judges and Unlucky JuvenilesOzkan Eren and Naci Mocan, September, 2016“We show that upset losses of the LSU football team increase disposition (sentence) length imposed by judges, and that this effect persists throughout the work week following a Saturday game.”
Is Justice Really Blind? Race and Reversal in US Courts Journal of Legal Studies, July, 2016“[B]lack federal judges are consistently overturned on appeal more often than similar white judges.”
The Gavel Gap: Who Sits in Judgment on State Courts? American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, June, 2016“We find that courts are not representative of the people whom they serve -- that is, a gap exists between the bench and the citizens.”
America's Top Five Deadliest Prosecutors: How Overzealous Personalities Drive the Death Penalty The Fair Punishment Project, June, 2016“There are more than 3,100 counties, 2,400 head prosecutors, and thousands of line prosecutors in America -- yet only a tiny handful of prosecutors are responsible for a vastly disproportionate number of death sentences.”
The Heavy Costs of High Bail: Evidence from Judge Randomization Columbia Law School, May, 2016“Our estimates suggest that the assignment of money bail causes a 6 percentage point rise in the likelihood of pleading guilty, and a 4 percentage point rise in recidivism.”
Race and the Jury: How the Law is Keeping Minorities off the Jury Stephanie Adamakos, May, 2016“Federal statute requires that registered-voters lists be used as source lists, but many states supplement with Department of Motor Vehicle records of people with licenses...whites are more likely to be included in both of these source lists.”
In Your StateGideon at 50, April, 2016“This interactive map provides the public and policy-makers with a birds-eye view of some of the most critical aspects of the provision of public defense.”
Prosecutorial Oversight: A National Dialogue in the Wake of Connick v. ThompsonInnocence Project, March, 2016“There are almost no adequate systems in place to keep prosecutorial error and misconduct in check and, in fact, prosecutors are rarely held accountable even for intentional misconduct.”
Criminal (In)justice: A Cost Analysis of Wrongful Convictions, Errors, and Failed Prosecutions in California's Criminal Justice System The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy, Berkeley School of Law, March, 2016“Criminal (In)justice examines 692 adult felony criminal cases where California missed the mark in public safety by failing to prosecute the right person or by pursuing a flawed or unsustainable conviction.”
Snapshot of Indigent Defense Representation in Michigan's Adult Criminal Courts Michigan Indigent Defense Commission, February, 2016“The first survey of indigent defense court systems is just one part of an extensive, multipronged data gathering strategy that the MIDC will use to initiate comprehensive system change.”
Exonerations in 2015The National Registry of Exonerations, February, 2016“2015 set a record for exonerations in the United States - 149 that we know of so far, in 29 states, the District of Columbia, federal courts and Guam.”
Lethally Deficient: Direct Appeals in Texas Death Penalty Cases Texas Defender Service, 2016“Review by the U.S. Supreme Court was not sought in 34.6% of the cases surveyed, meaning that defense lawyers waived the first opportunity for federal review in more than a third of Texas death penalty cases decided on direct appeal between 2009 and 2015.”
How Judicial Elections Impact Criminal CasesBrennan Center for Justice, December, 2015“The more frequently television ads air during an election, the less likely state supreme court justices are, on average, to rule in favor of criminal defendants.”
Right to Counsel in Utah: An Assessment of Trial-Level Indigent Defense Services Sixth Amendment Center, October, 2015“Utah’s trial courts do not uniformly provide counsel to indigent defendants at all critical stages of criminal cases as required by the U.S. Supreme Court[.]”
Debtors' Prisons in New HampshireACLU of New Hampshire, September, 2015(In 2013 New Hampshire judges jailed people who were unable to pay fines and without conducting a meaningful ability-to-pay hearing in an estimated 148 cases.)
Blackstrikes: A Study of the Racially Disparate Use of Preemptory Challenges by the Caddo Parish District Attorney's Office Reprieve Australia, August, 2015“In short, over the course of a ten year period, Caddo parish prosecutors exercised peremptory challenges against black prospective jurors at more than three times the rate at which they exercised peremptory challenges against white prospective jurors.”
Stuck in the '70s: The Demographics of California Prosecutors Stanford Criminal Justice Center, July, 2015“Latinos are almost 39 percent of the population but only nine percent of California prosecutors.”
Investigation of the St. Louis County Family Court St. Louis, Missouri Department of Justice, July, 2015“Black children are almost one-and-a-half times (1.46) more likely than White children to have their cases handled formally, even after introducing control variables such as gender, age, risk factors, and severity of the allegation.”
Guilty Property: How Law Enforcement Takes $1 Million in Cash from Innocent Philadelphians Every Year -- and Gets Away with It ACLU of Pennsylvania, June, 2015“Every year, Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies take roughly $14 million in cash, cars, and homes from property owners and never give it back.”
The Summons Report: Trends in the Issuance and Disposition of Summonses in New York City John Jay College of Criminal Justice, April, 2015“Overall, summonses are on the decline. This decline is driven by lower issuance rates among 16-17-year-olds and 18-20-year-olds, mainly for disorderly conduct.”
Trial Defense Guidelines: Representing a Child Client Facing a Possible Life Sentence Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, March, 2015“The objective of these guidelines is to set forth a national standard of practice to ensure zealous, constitutionally effective representation for all juveniles facing a possible life sentence.”
Not Just a Ferguson Problem: How Traffic Courts Drive Inequality in California Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, March, 2015“As a result, over four million Californians do not have valid driver’s licenses because they cannot afford to pay traffic fines and fees.”
A Prosecutor's Guide for Advancing Racial EquityVera Institute of Justice, March, 2015“Despite efforts to be fair and equitable, prosecutors may unintentionally contribute to the overrepresentation of minorities in the nation’s courtrooms, prisons, and jails.”
Don't I Need A Lawyer? Pretrial Justice and the Right to Counsel at First Judicial Bail Hearing The Constitution Project, March, 2015“It describes the far-reaching and well-documented adverse effects of denying counsel at the earliest stages of a criminal prosecution, a situation that presents numerous constitutional concerns.”
Guidelines for Indigent Defense Caseloads: A Report to the Texas Indigent Defense Commission Public Policy Research Institute, January, 2015(The problems in providing criminal defense representation for the indigent in state courts are well documented. But of all the difficulties, none has proven more vexing than outrageously high caseloads of public defenders and sometimes private lawyers.)
Exonerations in 2014: The National Registry of Exonerations The National Registry of Exonerations, January, 2015“The National Registry of Exonerations has recorded 125 exonerations in 2014. The previous highest total was 91 in 2012.”
21 Principles for the 21st Century ProsecutorBrennan Center for Justice, 2015“Given their powers, prosecutors are well positioned to make changes that can roll back over-incarceration. They can use their discretion to improve the overall fairness and efficacy of the criminal justice system.”
Whitewashing the Jury Box: How California Perpetuates the Discriminatory Exclusion of Black and Latinx Jurors Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic, 2015“We evaluated nearly 700 cases decided by the California Courts of Appeal from 2006 through 2018, which involved objections to prosecutors' peremptory challenges. In nearly 72% of these cases, district attorneys used their strikes to remove Black jurors.”
Justice Derailed: A case study of abusive and unconstitutional practices in Colorado city courts ACLU of Colorado, 2015“Colorado's municipal courts operate with little meaningful statewide oversight or accountability, providing an opportunity for civil liberties violations and other abusive practices to occur unnoticed, unreported, and unaddressed by state agencies.”
Justice for All?Women Donors Network, 2015“95% of elected prosecutors are white. 85% of prosecutors run for election unopposed.”
Defendant Remorse, Need for Affect, and Juror Sentencing DecisionsEmily Corwin, Louisiana State Univeristy; Professor Robert Cramer, Sam Houston State University; Desiree Griffin, Southern Virginia Mental Health Institute; Professor Stanley Brodsky, University of Alabama, 2015“Incongruent verbal and nonverbal behavior, as well as mock juror willingness to approach emotional situations (i.e., high need for affect resulted in more lenient sentences for defendants.”
Unlocking the Black Box: How the Prosecutorial Transparency Act Will Empower Communities and Help End Mass Incarceration ACLU, 2015(We cannot end mass incarceration until we transform the practices of prosecutors. This requires a far more complete picture of how they are making their decisions as well as the direct impact of those decisions on individuals and communities.)
Conviction Integrity Units: Vanguard of Criminal Justice Reform Center for Prosecutor Integrity, December, 2014“In regard to exonerations, the nine CIUS are credited with 61 exonerations.”
Skewed Justice: Citizens United, Television Advertising and State Supreme Court Justices' Decisions in Criminal Cases Emory Law School; American Constitution Society, October, 2014“In a state with 10,000 ads, a doubling of airings is associated on average with an 8 percent increase in justices' voting against a criminal defendant's appeal.”
Public Safety - Municipal CourtsBetter Together, October, 2014“This means that the municipal courts in the St. Louis region accounted for 46% of all fines and fees collected statewide, despite being home to only 22% of Missourians.”
Federal Prosecution for the 21st CenturyBrennan Center for Justice, September, 2014“The report proposes reorienting the way prosecutors' "success" is measured around three core goals: Reducing violent and serious crime, reducing prison populations, and reducing recidivism.”
Indigent Defense Services In The United States, FY 2008-2012 - UpdatedBureau of Justice Statistics, July, 2014“It provides both direct and intergovernmental indigent defense expenditures of state governments for fiscal years 2008 through 2012, and presents some local government expenditures aggregated at the state level.”
Race and Prosecution in ManhattanVera Institute of Justice, July, 2014(Blacks and Latinos were particularly likely to be held in pretrial detention for misdemeanor person offenses, followed by misdemeanor drug offenses. Blacks and Latinos were also most likely to have their cases dismissed for misdemeanor drug offenses.)
It's Not Just Ferguson: Missouri Supreme Court Should Consolidate the Municipal Court System Arch City Defenders, July, 2014(This paper examines six municipalities in St. Louis County and offers a series of reforms, including the consolidation of St. Louis County's 81 municipal courts into a single regional court system.)
Automatic Adult Prosecution of Children in Cook County, Illinois.2010-2012Juvenile Justice Initiative, April, 2014“Illinois should restore authority over whether a child under 18 should be tried in adult criminal court to juvenile court judges. This will bring Illinois in line with the majority of states, and will ensure better outcomes...”
Redefining Indigence: Financial Eligibility Guidelines for Assigned Counsel National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, March, 2014“A defendant making just above 125 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines receives federal assistance to pay for food, heat and medical care for their children but is somehow not regarded by some states as too poor to hire a lawyer.”
The Crucible of Adversarial Testing Access to counsel in Delaware's criminal courts Sixth Amendment Center, February, 2014“As such, it is our opinion that Delaware triages justice to the detriment of a large number of defendants that come before its criminal and family courts.”
The New Normal? Prosecutorial Charging in California After Public Safety Realignment Stanford Criminal Justice Center, January, 2014“As for specific substantive conclusions, the undramatic one is that most charging or recommendation preferences remain consistent with traditional severity factors and do not manifest major alterations in light of AB 109.”
Prosecution and Racial Justice in New York County Technical Report Vera Institute of Justice, January, 2014(For all offenses combined, compared to similarly-situated white defendants, black and Latino defendants were more likely to be detained, to receive a custodial plea offer, and to be incarcerated; but they were also more likely to benefit from dismissals.)
Assessing Judicial Sentencing Preferences After Public Safety Realignment: A Survey of California Judges Stanford Criminal Justice Center, January, 2014“Our study finds that 57% of judges preferred to give an 1170(h) sentence over a felony probation sentence, except when the hypothetical contains information about the offender's substance abuse or mental illness.”
An Offer You Can't Refuse How US Federal Prosecutors Force Drug Defendants to Plead Guilty Human Rights Watch, December, 2013“In 2012, the average sentence of federal drug offenders convicted after trial was three times higher (16 years) than that received after a guilty plea (5 years and 4 months).”
State Court Organization, 2011Bureau of Justice Statistics, November, 2013“From 1980 to 2011, the number of state trial court judges increased 11%, from 24,784 to 27,570 (figure 1). During the same period, the U.S. population increased 37%, and arrests in the U.S. increased 19%.”
Race, Justifiable Homicide, and Stand Your Ground Laws: Analysis of FBI Supplementary Homicide Report Data Urban Institute, July, 2013“Regardless of how the data are analyzed, substantial racial disparities exist in the outcomes of cross-race homicides. In addition, the recent expansion of Stand Your Ground laws in two dozen states appears to worsen the disparity.”
Turning Migrants Into Criminals: The Harmful Impact of US Border Prosecutions Human Rights Watch, May, 2013“But the prosecutions of illegal entry offenses happening today are overbroad... and are thus draining resources that could go to efforts to increase public safety and create a more secure, efficient, and humane immigration system.”
Missouri: Justice Rationed An Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality of Juvenile Defense Representation in Delinquency Proceedings National Juvenile Defender Center, April, 2013“Missouri's indigent defense system is in crisis and has suffers crushing caseloads and inadequate resources. The system remains broken and forced to ration services, and youth are discouraged from and systematically denied counsel throughout the state.”
Gideon at 50: Three Reforms to Revive the Right to Counsel Brennan Center for Justice, April, 2013“Recommendations include: legalizing some petty offenses or reclassifying them into non-jailable civil infractions; increase funding for public defense; Increase effectiveness by funding regular trainings for attorneys and adding social workers.”
The National Registry of Exonerations: Update 2012 National Registry of Exonerations, April, 2013“For all exonerations, the most common causal factors that we have identified are: perjury or false accusation (52%); official misconduct (43%); and mistaken eyewitness identification (41%).”
Rationing Justice: The Underfunding of Assigned Counsel Systems -- A 50-State Survey of Trial Court Assigned Counsel Rates National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, March, 2013“A combination of low hourly rates, fee limitations and the use of flat fees discourages attorneys from providing zealous representation and can give rise to serious conflicts of interest.”
The National Institute of Justice's Evaluation of Second Chance Act Adult Reentry Courts: Program Characteristics and Preliminary Themes from Year 1 National Institute of Justice, March, 2013“Characteristics common across most NESCAARC sites include the emphasis on post-release service delivery, relevant services, case management, court hearings for the purpose of monitoring progress, drug testing, and a team approach to decision-making.”
Improving Discovery in Criminal Cases in Texas: How Best Practices Contribute to Criminal Justice Texas Appleseed, February, 2013“Witness statements are often crucial to the evaluation and defense of a criminal case. While most states require pre-trial disclosure of witness statements or lists, Texas does not.”
Raising the Age of Juvenile Court Jurisdiction The future of 17-year-olds in Illinois' justice system Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission, February, 2013“Adding 17-year-old misdemeanants to the juvenile justice system in 2010 did not crash it. In fact, due to a sharp decline in juvenile crime, there are currently fewer juvenile arrests than when the General Assembly began debating the change in 2008.”
National Indigent Defense Reform: The Solution is Multifaceted National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, January, 2013“The report discusses 1) front-end reform, 2) the delivery of services, including the importance of standards and commissions, and 3) the need for collaboration and cooperation with others within and outside the criminal justice system.”
In Search of Racial Justice: The Role of the Prosecutor New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy, 2013“...one of every three African American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as can one of every six Latino males. One of every eighteen African American females and one of every forty-five Hispanic females face a similar fate.”
An Epidemic of Prosecutor MisconductCenter for Prosecutor Integrity, 2013“An analysis by the Northern California Innocence Project found out of 707 cases of court-identified misconduct, only six prosecutors (fewer than 1%) were disciplined by the State Bar.”
The Anatomy of Discretion: An Analysis of Prosecutorial Decision Making Vera Institute of Justice, December, 2012“While prosecutorial discretion is generally seen as very broad and unconstrained, prosecutors often rely on a fairly limited array of legal and quasi-legal factors to make decisions, and are further constrained by several contextual factors.”
Pretrial Release and Misconduct in Federal District Courts, 2008-2010Bureau of Justice Statistics, November, 2012“About half (51%) of defendants with no prior arrest history were released pretrial, compared to 34% of defendants with 2 to 4 prior arrests and 21% of defendants with more than 10 prior arrests.”
For Better or for Profit: How the Bail Bonding Industry Stands in the Way of Fair and Effective Pretrial Justice Justice Policy Institute, September, 2012“With the personal liberty of accused people held by a profit-driven private industry, for-profit bail bonding is systemically prone to corruption, criminal collusion, and the use of coercion against bonded people.”
Ineffective Assistance of Library: The Failings and the Future of Prison Law Libraries Jonathan Abel, June, 2012“The courts' attempts to graft an access-to-courts rationale onto a law library system that had developed for other purposes led to a law library doctrine riddled with contradictions and doomed to failure.”
Increasing Court-Appearance Rates and Other Benefits of Live-Caller Telephone Court-Date Reminders: The Jefferson County, Colorado, FTA Pilot Project and Resulting Court Date Notification Program Timothy R. Schnake, Michael R. Jones, and Dorian M. Wilderman, June, 2012“Telephone reminders using live callers work. They increase court appearance rates, dramatically reducing the significant costs associated with FTAs (failures to appear) and FTA warrants.”
Do Race and Ethnicity Matter in Prosecution? A Review of Empirical Studies Vera Institute of Justice, June, 2012“Most of the 34 studies reviewed here suggest that defendants' or victims' race directly or indirectly influence case outcomes, even when a host of other legal and extra-legal factors are taken into account.”
Report of Findings: (investigation of allegations of national origin discrimination) Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, March, 2012“...AOC policy does not provide interpreters in child custody hearings; child support hearings, civil no-contact order 50C proceedings, foreclosures, and divorce proceedings”
Adult Criminal Justice Case Processing in Washington, DCUrban Institute, February, 2012“For every 150 arrests for a felony in the District, 100 have formal charges filed, 53 result in a conviction, 16 result in prison, and 4 result in a”
A Stubborn Legacy: The Overwhelming Importance of Race in Jury Selection in 173 Post-Batson North Carolina Capital Trials Michigan State University College of Law, 2012“Over the twenty-year period we examined, prosecutors struck eligible black venire members at about 2.5 times the rate they struck eligible venire members who were not black.”
A Constitutional Default: Services to Criminal Defendants in Pennsylvania Joint State Government Commission, General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, December, 2011(A study of the Commonwealth's indigent defense system concluded that the Supreme Court's mandate of free counsel has been ignored by the General Assembly and is not being fulfilled in Pennsylvania.)
Forensic DNA Database Expansion Growing Racial Inequities, Eroding Civil Liberties and Diminishing Returns Generations Ahead, November, 2011“Given the existing racial bias in other aspects of the criminal justice system, we need to ensure that DNA databases do not unfairly and disproportionately affect communities of color.”
Appeals Of Civil Trials Concluded In 2005Bureau of Justice Statistics, October, 2011“The trial court verdict or judgment was fully or partly reversed in 35% of civil appeals decided on the merits.”
When Treatment is Punishment The Effects of Maryland's Incompetency to Stand Trial Policies and Practices Justice Policy Institute, October, 2011“Too many people found not competent to stand trial are unnecessarily locked in a secure setting for treatment and, on average, confined for longer periods than research demonstrates is clinically reasonable.”
Crisis in the Courts Defining the Problem American Bar Association, August, 2011“[T]he Legal Services Corportation Budget for FY2011 was reduced an additional 3.8% half way through that budget cycle, even as the number of Americans eligible for civil legal aid was pushed by the Recession to an all-time high of 57 Million.”
Juvenile Court Statistics 2008US Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, July, 2011“Drug offense case rates increased dramatically for all age groups between 1991 and 1998: 229% for juveniles ages 10–12, 165% for youth ages 13–15, 146% for 16-year-olds, and 148% for 17-year-olds.”
System Overload The Costs of Under-Resourcing Public Defense Justice Policy Institute, July, 2011“In state-based public defender offices, 15 of the 19 reporting state programs exceeded the maximum recommended limit of felony or misdemeanor cases per attorney.”
Extraneous factors in judicial decisionsShai Danziger, Jonathan Levav, and Liora Avnaim-Pesso, April, 2011“We find that the percentage of favorable rulings drops gradually from ~65% to nearly zero within each decision session and returns abruptly to ~65% after a break. Our findings suggest that judicial rulings can be swayed by extraneous variables.”
Punitive Damage Awards In State Courts, 2005Bureau of Justice Statistics, March, 2011“Punitive damages were awarded in 700 (5%) of the 14,359 trials where plaintiffs prevailed.”
Predicting Erroneous Convictions: A Social Science Approach to Miscarriages of Justice Jon B. Gould, Julia Carrano, Richard Leo, Joseph Young, 2011“Results indicate that 10 factors help explain why an innocent defendant, once indicted, ends up erroneously convicted rather than released.”
Overview of Federal Criminal Cases Fiscal Year 2011 United States Sentencing Commission, 2011“Immigration cases continued to be the fastest growing segment of cases in the federal system. In fiscal year 2011, there were 29,717 immigration cases reported to the Commission, an increase of 1,213 cases from the prior fiscal year.”
State, County and Local Expenditures for Indigent Defense Services Fiscal Year 2008 American Bar Association, November, 2010“This report provides a description of each state’s indigent defense delivery system, the total indigent defense expenditure in fiscal year 2008, and the system’s funding structure.”
Preventable Error A Report on Prosecutorial Misconduct in California 1997 - 2009 Northern California Innocence Project, Santa Clara University School of Law, October, 2010“[This report] is the most comprehensive, up-to-date, quantitative and actionable study on the extent of prosecutorial misconduct in CA, how the justice system identifies and addresses it, and its cost and consequences, including [wrongful convictions].”
State Public Defender Programs, 2007Bureau of Justice Statistics, September, 2010(Fifteen state programs exceeded the recommended number of felony and misdemeanor cases per attorney.)
County-Based And Local Public Defender Offices, 2007Bureau of Justice Statistics, September, 2010(About three-quarters (73%) of county-based public defender offices exceeded the maximum recommended limit of cases received per attorney in 2007.)
Tort Bench and Jury Trials in State Courts, 2005Bureau of Justice Statistics, November, 2009“In the nation's 75 most populous counties, the number of tort trials declined by about a third between 1996 and 2005.”
Contract Bench and Jury Trials in State Courts, 2005Bureau of Justice Statistics, September, 2009“Contract trials in 2005 most commonly involved an individual suing a business (33%), followed by a business suing another business (25%).”
Minor Crimes, Major Waste: The Terrible Toll of America's Broken Misdemeanor Courts National Association of Criminal defense Lawyers, April, 2009“...literally millions of accused misdemeanants, particularly those unable to hire private counsel, and disproportionately people of color, routinely are denied the due process to which the Constitution entitles them.”
Drug Courts: A Review of the Evidence Sentencing Project, April, 2009“An analysis of research findings from 76 drug courts found a 10% reduction in rearrest.”
Civil Bench and Jury Trials in State Courts, 2005Bureau of Justice Statistics, October, 2008“The total number of civil trials declined by over 50% from 1992 to 2005 in the nation's 75 most populous counties.”
State Court Processing of Domestic Violence CasesBureau of Justice Statistics, February, 2008“Prosecuted domestic sexual assault defendants had a higher overall conviction rate (98%) than prosecuted non-domestic sexual assault defendants (87%).”
State Court Organization, 1987-2004Bureau of Justice Statistics, October, 2007“The report examines changes in the organization and operations of the Nation's state trial and appellate courts [from 1987-2004].”
Felony Sentences in the United States, 1994Bureau of Justice Statistics, July, 2007“Between 1992 and 1994 the number of felony convictions decreased 2% in State courts and 5% in Federal courts.”
An Analysis of the Performance of Federal Indigent Defense CounselNational Bureau of Economic Research, June, 2007“The federal indigent defense system relies on both salaried government workers... and hourly-wage earning court-appointed private [CJA] attorneys.... Defendants with CJA ... attorneys are... more likely to be found guilty and... receive longer sentences.”
Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in State Death Penalty Systems: The Florida Death Penalty Assessment Report American Bar Association, September, 2006“[R]esearch establishes that many Florida capital jurors do not understand their role and responsibilities when deciding whether to impose a death sentence.”
Prosecutors in State Courts, 2005Bureau of Justice Statistics, July, 2006“Most prosecutors (95%) relied on State operated forensic laboratories to perform DNA analysis, with about a third (34%) also using privately operated DNA labs.”
A Report on Pre- and Post-Katrina Indigent Defense in New OrleansSouthern Center for Human Rights, April, 2006“More than six months after Katrina, a majority of [indigent defendants] remain behind bars, where they have languished on average for over a year without any communication with a defense attorney.”
Felony Defendants in Large Urban Counties, 2002Bureau of Justice Statistics, February, 2006“Eighty-two percent of defendants were male, including 90% or more of those charged with rape (99%), a weapons offense (96%), murder (93%), or robbery (90%). The percentage of female defendants increased from 14% in 1990 to 18% in 1998...”(Presents data collected from a representative sample of felony cases filed in the Nation's 75 largest counties during May 2002.)
Childhood on Trial The Failure of Trying and Sentencing Youth in Adult Criminal Court Coalition for Juvenile Justice, 2005“Overview of report that identifies the public safety and rehabilitative failures of our nation's widespread”
In Defense of Public Access to Justice: An Assessment of Trial-Level Indigent Defense Services in Louisiana 40 Years After Gideon National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, March, 2004
Judicial DemocracyCouncil of State Governments, October, 2003(trends in judicial elections)
Montana An Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality of Representation in Delinquency Proceedings American Bar Association Juvenile Justice Center, October, 2003
North Carolina: An Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality of Representation in Delinquency Proceedings American Bar Association Juvenile Justice Center, October, 2003
Washington: An Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality of Representation in Delinquency Proceedings American Bar Association Juvenile Justice Center, October, 2003
Youth in CourtOffice of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, June, 2003
Unlocking the Future: Detention Reform in the Juvenile Justice System Coalition for Juvenile Justice; Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2003“Juvenile court jurisdictions... needlessly sweep into locked detention many young people with mental health, substance abuse and family problems - most of whom are 15 years or younger, nonviolent, and disproportionately youth of color.”
Common Sense Says... That people on Death Row often had the state's worst lawyers at trial. Common Sense Foundation, October, 2002“More than one in six current death row inmates was represented at trial by lawyers who have been disciplined by the North Carolina State Bar”
Prosecutors in State Courts 2001 Bureau of Justice Statistics, May, 2002“Number of full-time prosecutors grows in nation's State court systems”
Federal Habeas Corpus Review: Challenging State Court Criminal Convictions Bureau of Justice Statistics, September, 1995(samples cases in 18 courts in 9 states)
