Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2007

Abstract

That federal criminal trials are an endangered species is clear. During fiscal year 2004, only 4% (3346) of the 83,391 federal defendants in terminated cases went to trial. And, trends that Professor Ronald Wright highlights in his insightful article have continued past the end point of his data. In 1994, 4639 defendants obtained verdicts from juries and 1050 from judges; in 2003, just 2909 and 615, respectively, did so. Every time one thinks that the system has hit an equilibrium at some “natural” distribution, the trial rate goes down a bit more.

Disciplines

Criminal Law | Criminal Procedure | Law

Comments

Copyright © 2007 Penn Law: Legal Scholarship Repository.

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