Milton Heumann

A Note on Plea Bargaining and Case Pressure

* I wish to express my appreciation to Norman Ankers, an honors student in political science at the University of Michigan, and Ronald Burda, a Wayne State University law student, for commentary and for assistance in analyzing the data. 1. Trial rates vary across jurisdictions, and precise figures remain elusive. McIntyre and Lippman (1970: 1156-57) reported that the average trials to total dispositions ratio for felony cases from 1965-69 in Kings County, Brooklyn, was 300/3000, at 10%; in Detroit, 900/9200, or 9.8%; in Harris County, Houston, 360/6260, or 5.8%; in Cook County, Chicago, 900/4500, or 20%. Blumberg (1967: 30) analyzed the volume of cases disposed of by trial in New York for the years 1950 through 1964: Indictments Total cases Per cent found by disposed of disposed of Year grand jury by trial by trial

The World of Whistleblowing: From the Altruist to the Avenger

This exploratory study investigates the world of whistleblowing. The topic has produced a great deal of discussion but little clear understanding of the contexts in which whistleblowers act or the paths they follow, or even a critical understanding of whistleblowing as a social and legal practice. The study articulates some of these boundaries through a mixed-method analysis. The authors reviewed extant quantitative data and conducted a series of interviews in order to be able to sketch a plausible picture of the current state of whistleblowing. The results were used to construct a typology of whistleblowers that provides a conceptual shorthand for the goals, motivations, and contexts that define whistleblowing.

Public Perceptions of Whistleblowing

This article reports the results of a two-pronged exploration of public perceptions of whistleblowing, the first using a statewide public opinion poll, and the second, a laboratory experiment in which a multistage scenario determined respondents’ support for an employee’s protest actions and their classification of the employee as a whistleblower. One substantial finding is that self-interest taints the purity of the employee’s motivation making it less likely for respondents to classify the employee as a whistleblower. The employee’s gender, the type of action protested, and whether the employee worked in the public or private sector were randomly manipulated, with no significant differences in respondents’ support or classification of whistleblowing. Implications for future research are discussed.

Back to the Future: The Centrality of Plea Bargaining in the Criminal Justice System

Using Professor George Fishers wonderful new book, Plea Bargainings Triumph as a springboard and roadmap for a journey into plea bargainings past and present status, this brief essay will attempt to build a theory accounting for the centrality of plea bargaining in todays—and tomorrows—criminal justice system. By looking back, Fisher illuminates the present, and suggests a future for plea bargaining in the disposition of the cases. His analysis ends with “plea bargainings triumph;” with its emergence as the single most important (and powerful) factor in the disposition of criminal cases. I will applaud, but qualify his arguments and speculate about “plea bargainings future.” His looking back, led him to conclude that plea bargaining coopted or caused most criminal justice innovations of the past two decades, and that almost anthropomorphically, it emerged victorious. His understanding of the “causes” of plea bargainings centrality deserves applause along with qualification; his painting of a picture of plea bargaining “victory” is correct, and is fruitfully linked to a future informed by his understanding of a past. First, some general ground rules for what I will and will not do in this essay. I will not systematically or exhaustively summarize Fishers arguments, nor will I referee the disagreements he surfaced with the respect to the work of many major studies of plea bargaining and its history. Suffice it to say that this is a very careful historical study of the origins of plea bargaining, and that it primarily relies on a very detailed and very, very careful analysis of the court records of Middlesex County, Mass., mostly for cases disposed of in the 19 th century. Based on these data, and secondary analyses of data from studies of plea bargaining in other jurisdictions, Fisher builds a theory of the growth of plea bargaining that is sometimes original, always engaging, and inevitably provocative. Though I take issue with some of his arguments, he must be lauded for the care and clarity of his presentation, and for the enormous literature he uses to develop and support his case.