In Dubio Pro Reo. Behavioral Explanations of Pro-defendant Bias in Procedures

Antonio Nicita and Matteo Rizzolli

CESifo Economic Studies, 2014, vol. 60, issue 3, 554-580

Abstract: The standard model of optimal deterrence predicts that the probability of wrongful conviction of the innocent is, at the margin, as detrimental to deterrence as the probability of wrongful acquittal of guilty individuals. We extend the model in several directions: using expected utility as well as nonexpected utility to consider the role of risk aversion, nonlinear probability weighting, and loss aversion. We also consider how relevant emotions such as guilt, shame, and indignation play out. Several of these factors support the intuition that wrongful convictions of the innocent do have a larger detrimental impact on deterrence and thus the policy implications are reconciled with the widely shared maxim in dubio pro reo. We then draw some theoretical implications such as a novel justification for the different standards of proof in criminal vs. civil law as well as other policy implications. (JEL Codes: K14, K41, K42)

Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cesifo/ift016 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: In Dubio Pro Reo. Behavioral explanations of pro-defendant bias in procedures (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:cesifo:v:60:y:2014:i:3:p:554-580.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

CESifo Economic Studies is currently edited by Panu Poutvaara

More articles in CESifo Economic Studies from CESifo Group Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().