An analysis of the “jury trial penalty” and its effect on black and white offenders

Abstract

A number of studies have shown that defendants who request a jury trial are sentenced more harshly than defendants who plead guilty or request a bench trial. This paper continues this line of research and examines the effect of the jury trial penalty on black and white defendants charged with violent felonies in Detroit Recorder's Court. We hypothesize that jury defendants of both races will be penalized but that the penalty will be more severe for black than for white defendants. The results of our analysis provide support for the first part of the hypothesis. Jury defendants were more likely than nonjury defendants to be sentenced to prison; they also received considerably longer prison sentences. Our hypothesis that judges would impose a harsher penalty on black defendants than on white defendants, on the other hand, was not confirmed.