 Making the Crime Fit the Penalty: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion Under Mandatory Minimum SentencingDavid Bjerk () Department of Economics Working Papers from McMaster University Abstract: This paper empirically documents one way in which prosecutorial discretion can be used to dampen the effects of mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Specifically, I show prosecutors use their discretion over prosecution charges to circumvent a mandatory minimum sentencing law for some defendants, by prosecuting these de- fendants who were initially arrested for the crime targeted by the sentencing law for lesser crimes not covered by the law. I document the use of such discretion with respect to several state "three-strikes" type repeat offender laws imposed through- out the 1990s, where I find that prosecutors become significantly more likely to lower a defendant's prosecution charge to a misdemeanor when conviction for the initial felony arrest charge would likely lead to sentencing under a three-strikes law. Moreover, accounting for such behavior is important, as I show that failure to do so can lead to overstating the effects of these laws on average sentencing by almost thirty percent. JEL-codes: J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mcm:deptwp:2004-12 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Department of Economics Working Papers from McMaster University Contact information at EDIRC. |
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