White defendants generally get better plea deals than their black counterparts, and are more likely to avoid incarceration for low-level offenses, according to new research by Carlos Berdejó of Loyola Law School, who analyzed more than 48,000 cases occurring over a period of seven years.
Most research into racial disparities in the criminal justice system has focused on arrests, initial charges, and sentencing, Berdejó points out in his report. These studies often reveal that African Americans are more likely to be searched by police during traffic stops, be arrested, have force used against them, and charged with more serious crimes than white people. Far fewer studies have looked at disparities in the stages between charging a defendant, and a judge’s final sentencing.
According to Berdejó’s research into the plea bargaining stage of a case, white defendants are 25 percent more likely than black defendants to have their principal charge dropped or reduced to a lesser charge. Because of this, white defendants charged with felonies are less likely than black defendants to actually be convicted of a felony. Whites are 15 percent more likely than their black peers to receive a misdemeanor conviction, instead. Similarly, cases involving white defendants charged with misdemeanors are 75 percent more likely to end in no conviction, or a conviction for a crime that carries no jail time, than a black defendant accused of the same crime. Cases involving serious felonies result in similar outcomes for black and white defendants, but the disparities are more pronounced in misdemeanor and low-level felony cases, according to the study.
[For more on this story by Taylor Walker, go to http://witnessla.com/study-sho...ities-in-plea-deals/
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