Structured Plea Negotiations - Final Report

• NCJ Number: 89330
• Author(s): C Burnett; C A Warda
• Date Published: April 2025
• Length: 111 pages
• Grant Number(s): 80-IJ-CX-0024
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation

Annotation

The Structured Plea Negotiations (SPN) Project in the Sixth Judicial Circuit (Clearwater, Fla.) fulfilled its objectives of equitable dispositions, efficiency for court and motion calendars, and participants' perceptions of a just resolution of the case.

Abstract

The study involved test and control groups randomly selected. The selection for the test group was followed by a court order directed to the defendants and attorneys informing them of the date of the pretrial conference. The defendants and their attorneys had the option of accepting or rejecting the date. A total of 569 conferences were held. The intention of the conference was to reach an amicable resolution of the charge. If there was any doubt that the defendant was wrongly accused, the conference was cancelled, and the defendant was legally advised by the judge to seek a jury trial. It was also required that all discovery be completed or at least not be conducted in the course of the conference. Thus, with the issue of guilt resolved and all motions for discovery settled, the negotiation of a sentence could be undertaken. Of the 570 conferences held, 441 cases (77 percent) were settled by a negotiated plea. The other 129 cases did not accept the offer made at conference and pursued other methods for reaching a mutually acceptable disposition, including a jury trial. The averge length of time between the random selection and the conference date was 14 days, while the random length of time a control case required for final disposition was 51.9 days. Dispositions in the SPN project were designed to fit the defendant's charge rather than merely the penalty for the specific count. Participants in the conferences were generally satisfied that dispositions were equitable. Tabular data are provided, and material related to the project is appended.