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The Role of Courtroom Workgroups in Felony Case Dispositions: An Analysis of Workgroup Familiarity and Similarity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Christi Metcalfe
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Abstract

While pleading guilty has become ubiquitous in criminal trial courts, limited research has focused on the plea process and the factors that influence guilty plea convictions. Numerous theoretical accounts of the plea process highlight the importance of the court actors and their interactions. Based on this research, the current study analyzes the impact of courtroom actor familiarity and similarity on the chosen mode of disposition and the time to disposition. The findings demonstrate that similarity among the actors and familiarity between the prosecutor and judge increase the odds of a plea disposition and reduce the days to disposition. However, familiarity of the defense attorney seems to impede on the informal plea process, such that cases are more likely to proceed to trial when the defense attorney is more familiar with the other actors.

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Articles
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Law & Society Review , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 637 - 673
Copyright
© 2016 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, my dissertation committee, Dr. Thomas Baker, and Dr. Justin Pickett for their comments and feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. I would also like to thank the Public Defender's Office for their help and support.

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