A (Plea) Offer You Can Refuse

David S. Abrams, Viet Nguyen, Aurélie Ouss and Julia Reinhold

The Journal of Legal Studies, 2026, vol. 55, issue 2, 277 - 316

Abstract: Plea bargaining is ubiquitous in the United States, yet lack of data on rejected plea offers constrains empirical analysis. We compile novel data covering all initial plea offers for 23,000 felony cases in Philadelphia from 2012 to 2017. Our analysis yields three main insights. First, rejected initial offers are on average longer than eventual sentences, even for defendants convicted at trial. This contradicts the conventional trial penalty theory, namely, that rejecting a plea offer leads to a longer sentence. Second, using accepted offers as counterfactuals for rejected offers can lead to inaccurate estimates of the magnitude and even direction of the trial penalty. Third, even after controlling for detailed observables, initial plea offers are longer for Black defendants, especially those detained pretrial. Our study highlights the complexity of bargaining dynamics and the need for new theoretical frameworks and data on rejected offers to inform both theory and practice.

Date: 2026
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