Researching Law Volume 31 Issue 1 - Flipbook - Page 8
R ESEA RC HI N G L AW
Racism and discrimination were
evident in discretionary decisionmaking. Black citizens were
mistreated and unlawfully searched
and seized, while members of the
LGTBQ community were often
harassed. In one instance, a black
citizen was severely beaten after
photographing a group of officers
who were bowling in Pontiac,
Michigan. Unlawful arrests were
also conducted as police routinely
broke into buildings to obtain
evidence and created “clean-up”
squads by staging gambling riots.
The ABF Survey Team also found
that prosecutors and correctional
officials did not follow legal
norms. Defense attorneys often
gave a misleading account of their
actions to their clients, prosecutors
detained suspects longer under false
pretexts, and correctional officials
were even ignorant of the law.
Police misconduct was not only a
result of the lack of administrative
rule but also as a response to
the public’s demands to control
organized crime, including
gambling and disorder. In turn, the
role of police became convoluted.
Although actions were taken in
some places to restrict the role of
discretion in decision-making, field
researchers documented the fluid
nature of this. Their observations
showed that efforts to limit the
discretion of some officials nearly
always lead to shifts of judgment
from other officials.
8
Plea Bargaining
Before the ABF Survey, research
revealed that few arrests resulted
in prosecution, trial, conviction,
or imprisonment. At the time,
people were presumed guilty if
arrested or charged, and refusal to
prosecute or convict was viewed as
a “failure” to punish wrongdoers.
The ABF Survey team took a
different approach. They tried to
understand the decisions made by
prosecutors and other agencies
rather than focusing on whether
their approach was desirable.
Field researchers conducted
observations in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin and Detroit, Michigan,
where legal requirements differed.
They found that prosecutors
and other agencies tried to
accommodate to what the law
required. Although the law did not
mandate sentencing in Milwaukee,
it did mandate sentencing in
Detroit. As a result, what is
now known as “plea bargaining”
became common in Detroit. The
ABF Survey team found that the
plea-bargaining process was led by
consideration of what was thought
to be a proper outcome in each
individual case. This was used as
an alternative to prosecution and
conviction, especially in less severe
offenses in Detroit.
Observations from the ABF
team revealed that the informal
procedure of charging and pleabargaining is complex and difficult
because of the conflict between
applying the law and the desire
to provide a suitable outcome for
each case. The Survey showed that
although judgment as to what
was an appropriate outcome for
a case was always considered, the
stage where it was applied varied
from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
This often depended on if the law
required a mandatory sentence, as
it did in Detroit.
The ABF Survey revealed
ambiguity on whether the decision
to charge was an executive or
judicial responsibility. For instance,
cases occasionally came directly
to the prosecutor, leaving out
police involvement altogether.
The ABF Survey led to changes
to the Federal Rules of Criminal
Procedure to increase formal
requirements for plea bargaining.
At the time of the ABF Survey,
defendants often faced prosecutors
Observations from
the ABF team
revealed that the
informal procedure
of charging and
plea-bargaining is
complex and difficult
because of the
conflict between
applying the law and
the desire to provide
a suitable outcome
for each case.