Criminal Case Processing and Cumulative Disadvantage in Chile

The article discusses the issues concerned with the creation of a new model of summary proceedings that will not be unduly burdensome, will be consistent with the needs of law enforcement and allow to secure protection of the rights and lawful interests of persons involved in criminal proceedings to the full extent. The author analyzes the draft law that introduces the concept of a criminal wrong-doing. The article supports the idea that the prerogative to terminate criminal proceedings against a perpetrator who has committed a criminal wrong-doing belongs exclusively to the court. The court should resolve the matter during the court hearings with the participation of the suspect (accused), counsel for the defense, victim, his representative, prosecutor. Dealing with the file in a case with regard to the termination of criminal prosecution and application of measures of criminal character the court during the court hearings decides the issues of fact concerning the crime committed and only then it can resort to the measures having effect within the scope of criminal law. The author comes to the conclusion that the provisions of the draft law provide a significant reserve for optimization of pre-trial proceedings. The author analyses the recorded form of proceedings in criminal wrongdoing cases in the legislation of Kazakhstan, as well as the model of writ proceedings applied in criminal procedure of Kazakhstan. It is concluded that the imposition of a sentence without court hearing in the absence of the defendant and other participants of the trial does not meet the requirements of contemporary justice. The author comes to the conclusion that it is highly promising to establish a shortened period of pre-trial proceedings (10 days) for criminal cases against persons who have committed a criminal wrong-doing or any other crime of minor or medium gravity, a criminal prosecution for which can be dismissed with the application of measures of criminal nature. It is also possible, that requirements concerning providing evidence in a number of criminal cases will be reduced.

Every year, millions of people are held in pretrial detention across the United States, and billions of dollars are spent on their confinement. While some defendants are held preventatively due to safety concerns, most are held on an unaffordable bail where, if they were of greater means, they would likely be released pretrial. Since pretrial detention is one of the first decisions made in case processing, it has the potential to impact defendants' adjudication and sentencing outcomes. Through three interrelated studies, this dissertation aims to better understand the downstream consequences of pretrial detention, including who experiences the cumulative disadvantages of pretrial detention and under what circumstances. Study one uses systematic review and meta-analysis to establish what we know about the relationship between pretrial detention and case outcomes. Studies two and three use the Bureau of Justice Statistics' State Court Processing Statistics to explore how defendants detained for different reasons experience cumulative disadvantage and how cumulative disadvantage shifted alongside the repeal of the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Relying on advanced analyses, including meta-analysis and path modeling, findings suggest that detained defendants generally face more severe case outcomes than released defendants, and in particular, their likelihood of incarceration, being convicted, and pleading guilty. Both defendants held on bail and denied bail are subjected to this cumulative disadvantage despite the fundamental differences between these groups of defendants. Though, the cumulative disadvantages of pretrial detention have shifted over time alongside policy changes. Given the current bail reform movement, these findings have important implications for research and policy - namely, reducing the number of people held in pretrial detention and reducing the burdens of pretrial detention on those who are confined.--Author's abstract

Pretrial detention touches the lives of approximately 6.9 million Americans annually, with 96 percent of pretrial detainees held on an unaffordable bail. Despite being legally innocent and largely in poverty, pretrial detainees experience more severe case outcomes than released defendants, even when controlling for legal indicators and using quasi-experimental methods. I begin by reviewing the state of the literature on cumulative disadvantage and pretrial detention, focusing on convictions, guilty pleas, charge reductions, incarceration, and sentence length. As black and Latino males are more likely to be detained pretrial, I next review how pretrial detention indirectly amplifies disparities in case outcomes. I then identify gaps in the literature related to multi-stage analyses, under-studied measures, and qualitative methods. Finally, I discuss implications for theory and policy, connecting this literature and call for research to our current bail reform movement.

While numerous studies have examined pretrial detention and felony case outcomes, little empirical attention has been devoted to misdemeanor pretrial detention. We theorize that misdemeanants detained for a longer proportion of time will plead guilty quicker because the costs of fighting their charges in jail often outweigh the sanctions they face. Utilizing data on 165,630 felony and misdemeanor cases from Miami-Dade County, Florida, during a 4-year period (2012–2015) we assess whether the effects of pretrial detention length on the timing and content of guilty pleas differ across lower-level and upper-level courts. Survival analyses and multinomial logistic regressions indicate that misdemeanor cases overall and those involving lengthier pretrial detention are resolved faster, with most resulting in non-carceral sanctions such as credit for time served (CTS). Given that misdemeanors make-up the bulk of U.S. criminal cases, these findings reveal important insights about how pretrial detention impacts case-processing dynamics in lower courts.

Bail denied or bail too high? Disentangling cumulative disadvantage by pretrial detention type

BackgroundEvidence for the association between social determinants of health (SDoH) and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is largely based on single SDoH measures, with limited evaluation of cumulative social disadvantage. We examined the association between cumulative social disadvantage and the Health and Activity Limitation Index (HALex).MethodsUsing adult data from the National Health Interview Survey (2013–2017), we created a cumulative disadvantage index by aggregating 47 deprivations across 6 SDoH domains. Respondents were ranked using cumulative SDoH index quartiles (SDoH-Q1 to Q4), with higher quartile groups being more disadvantaged. We used two-part models for continuous HALex scores and logistic regression for poor HALex (< 20th percentile score) to examine HALex differences associated with cumulative disadvantage. Lower HALex scores implied poorer HRQoL performance.ResultsThe study sample included 156,182 respondents, representing 232.8 million adults in the United States (mean age 46 years; 51.7% women). The mean HALex score was 0.85 and 17.7% had poor HALex. Higher SDoH quartile groups had poorer HALex performance (lower scores and increased prevalence of poor HALex). A unit increase in SDoH index was associated with − 0.010 (95% CI [-0.011, -0.010]) difference in HALex score and 20% higher odds of poor HALex (odds ratio, OR = 1.20; 95% CI [1.19, 1.21]). Relative to SDoH-Q1, SDoH-Q4 was associated with HALex score difference of -0.086 (95% CI [-0.089, -0.083]) and OR = 5.32 (95% CI [4.97, 5.70]) for poor HALex. Despite a higher burden of cumulative social disadvantage, Hispanics had a weaker SDoH-HALex association than their non-Hispanic White counterparts.ConclusionsCumulative social disadvantage was associated with poorer HALex performance in an incremental fashion. Innovations to incorporate SDoH-screening tools into clinical decision systems must continue in order to accurately identify socially vulnerable groups in need of both clinical risk mitigation and social support. To maximize health returns, policies can be tailored through community partnerships to address systemic barriers that exist within distinct sociodemographic groups, as well as demographic differences in health perception and healthcare experience.

Structural bias in the sentencing of felony defendants

As incarceration rates have risen in the U.S., so has the overrepresentation of African Americans and Latinos among prison inmates. Whether and to what degree these disparities are due to bias in the criminal courts remains a contentious issue. This article pursues two lines of argument toward a structural account of bias in the criminal law, focusing on (1) cumulative disadvantages that may accrue over successive stages of the criminal justice process, and (2) the racial contexts in which courts are embedded. These arguments are tested using case-level data on male defendants charged with felony crimes in urban U.S. counties in 2000. Multilevel binary and ordinal logit models are used to estimate contextual effects on pretrial detention, guilty pleas, and sentence severity, and cumulative effects are estimated as conditional probabilities that are allowed to vary by race across all three outcomes. Results yield strong, but qualified, evidence of cumulative disadvantage accruing to black and Latino defendants, but do not support the contextual hypotheses. When the cumulative effects of bias are taken into account, the estimated probability of the average African American or Latino felon going to prison is 26 percent higher than that of the average Anglo.

Concern about the harm that involvement in the criminal justice system can cause for youth and socially marginalized individuals prompted alternatives to traditional criminal processing in the mid-1960s. Pretrial diversion initially was an initiative focused around rehabilitating youths and first-time nonviolent defendants charged with a criminal offense. The defendant could voluntarily enter a diversion program to be helped, and at the same time, avoid the stigmatizing effects of a criminal conviction. Diversion, in most cases, takes place after the filing of a formal charge and before the adjudication of guilt, but the defendant remains under the authority of the criminal justice system. One important exception to this is police-led diversion whereby police officers typically divert youths away from juvenile justice system oversight. Pretrial diversion in practice is also known as deferred adjudication, deferred prosecution, police-led diversion or pre-prosecution intervention. Pretrial diversion is frequently and incorrectly confused with pretrial detention or pretrial release (See the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Criminology article “Bail and Pretrial Detention” for more information about pretrial detention). In pretrial release, the defendant is released from detention to assist in his or her own defense in a criminal case that is being processed through traditional channels. In contrast, the prosecutor in a diversion case agrees to delay the prosecution of the charge while the defendant undergoes counseling in a community-based setting or pays back the victim for losses incurred. With successful completion of diversion, the charge is dismissed, but the meaning of dismissal varies. Some states (e.g., Kansas) will permanently dismiss charges, while prosecutors in other states (e.g., Florida, Texas) exercise the option to re-file the charge again if a new crime is committed within a specified number of years after diversion is completed. The primary goals of the original diversion programs were the defendant’s likelihood of rehabilitation, increased employment prospects, and lowered recidivism. Rehabilitation was also a central tenet of the juvenile justice system (See the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Criminology article “Juvenile Justice System”) at this same time. This goal required the defendant in some jurisdictions to admit responsibility by entering a guilty plea. The judge decided whether this plea was made voluntarily and intelligently. In other jurisdictions, a guilty plea is not required and the prosecutor delays the case or the judge “continues” the case until diversion is completed. This bibliography presents the most important criminological works and law reviews that discuss history of diversion, legal issues, criticisms, referral methods, youth diversion programs, and evaluations of diversion programs for adults.

This article empirically tests the traditional explanation for the transformation in processing of criminal cases in the United States of America, from jury trials to guilty pleas. Commentators, such as Lawrence Friedman, Malcolm Feeley, and John Langbein contend that reliance on jury trials, in the first half of the nineteenth century, was a function of the presence of amateur actors, while reliance on guilty pleas, which displaced trials from the mid-century onward, occurred because of the advent of professionalization among police and lawyers. We posit an alternative explanation related to the effect of change in the wider political economy on the role of courtroom actors and the disposition of criminal cases. We first consider the arguments in support of the professionalization hypothesis. We then present data on changes in the political economy of New York and their effect on the judicial process. Our data cover two periods: 1800-1845, the mercantile-laissez-faire era of individualized justice, and 1845-1865, the pre-industrial era, when aggregate outcome gave rise to 'assembly-line' justice and the guilty-plea system of case disposition. Our data concern indicted cases in New York City's Court of General Sessions, one of the earliest legal institutions in the United States of America and the city's major criminal court in the nineteenth century. General Sessions jurisdiction included, by 1821, offences punishable by life imprisonment.2 We describe General Sessions' cases, how they were assembled, memorialized, and presented in court. We present data on legal representation, the role of judges and juries, and the method of case disposition. We then show how society's concern for aggregate justice transformed the courtroom and politicized the office of the District Attorney, shifting control over case disposition from individual private prosecutors to a state agency.

The paper is devoted to the issues of judicial control in modern Russian pre-trial proceedings in criminal cases.The concept of judicial power is considered, including in the context of the development of scientific ideas about its nature. Based on the developed ideas about this concept and the goals of the judiciary, the author substantiates the thesis that judicial control is an independent function of the judiciary.Next, the features of the parties to disputes resolved through judicial control, their subject are analyzed, and on this basis, the author’s perception of the content of judicial control in pre-trial proceedings in criminal cases is proposed. In conclusion, the issue of the place of judicial control in pre-trial proceedings in criminal cases is considered through the prism of the structure of criminal proceedings. A classification of judicial control proceedings that may exist at the specified stage of the process, depending on their subject, is proposed. The need for further research is stated, due to the insufficiency and inconsistency of regulation of the powers of the court in the exercise of judicial control.

The novelty of the article is a comparative analysis of it in the development of procedural guidance the investigation by the prosecutor in the scientific works of professor S. A. Sheyfer from the Soviet era to the present, the positions of other supporters of this idea at different stages of reforming the domestic criminal process, studies of modern authors, is devoted to relations between different participants of the process from the prosecution in pre-trial proceedings in criminal cases. The purpose of this analysis is to identify new and confirm previous arguments in favor of maintaining the prosecutors leading position in the implementation of criminal prosecution in pre-trial proceedings in criminal cases. The main argument in favor of such organization of prosecutorial activities is the continuation of prosecutorial activities by the prosecutor and in court by maintaining the public prosecution, formulated and substantiated before the trial. The objective was to identify substantive contradictions between the prosecutors function of criminal prosecution on behalf of the state and supervision of the legality of the preliminary investigation and inquiry and the set of powers that the prosecutor has under the current criminal procedure law. The article uses methods of system analysis and synthesis, comparative legal and historical methods. The study shows that in the course of reforming the domestic pre-trial proceedings in criminal cases, significant mistakes were made that require correction. The purpose of this correction is to preserve for the prosecutor, as a representative of the public prosecution service, the ability to exercise procedural leadership of the preliminary investigation, actively influencing the formation and justification of the accusation, which is then brought before the court. In conclusion, it is shown that this is how S. A. Sheyfer imagined the procedural role of the prosecutor as a representative of the prosecutorial authorities, actively influencing the detection and investigation of crimes.

The norms of the current Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation enshrine the principles of criminal proceedings, which originate from the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The principles have relative independence in regulating legal relations that develop in criminal proceedings. In the article, the authors consider the issues of applying the principle of the right to appeal procedural actions and decisions in the system of principles of criminal proceedings, its place in the system and the relationship with other principles, based on the provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the norms of international law. The authors draw attention to the methods of implementing this principle by participants in criminal proceedings both at the pre-trial stage and at the stage of judicial proceedings in criminal cases.

The article presents the results of a study of the procedural powers of the prosecutor of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in pre-trial proceedings in a criminal case. If there are some common features with the supervisory competence of the prosecutor in modern Russia, which is historically due to the influence of the legislation of the USSR and the RSFSR on the formation and development of the criminal procedure legislation of Vietnam, it should be noted that there are significant differences in the current status of the prosecutor of the SRV, especially in the totality and content of its powers. Taking into account the close «kinship» of the criminal procedure legislation of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and the Russian Federation, it makes sense to conduct a comparative legal study to establish current trends in their mutual development. The purpose of the study is to optimize the procedural status of the prosecutor of the SRV in the field of supervision of legality in pre-trial proceedings in criminal cases based on the experience of regulating the same status by the Russian legislator. The objectives of the study are: to study the Russian and Vietnamese experience in regulating the procedural status of the prosecutor in the field of ensuring the legality of the preliminary investigation; to conduct a comparative analysis of Russian and Vietnamese legislation; to identify problematic aspects in regulating the procedural status of the prosecutor of the SRV; to study the practical experience of prosecutorial supervision; to study the problem of improving the effectiveness of the prosecutor's performance of a number of procedural actions; to develop proposals for optimizing his procedural status. The research methods are: dialectical, historical, analytical (logical, formal-legal, comparative-legal, system-functional), generalization. Among the main results obtained: - identification of circumstances that indicate the continuation of the trend towards the traditional, historically determined continuity of the formation of the content of the criminal procedure legislation of the SRV and the Russian Federation in terms of regulating the powers of the prosecutor; – the legislation of the SRV in this part of the regulation is subject to the same problems as the Russian legislation, namely, the duality of the legal nature of the prosecutor's powers to supervise the legality of pre – trial proceedings in criminal cases; at the same time, the imperative of the relationship between the investigator and the prosecutor in the SRV seems to be more acceptable than the optional nature in Russian criminal proceedings; – we regard as a significant advantage of the prosecutor of the SRV over his Russian colleagues, his right to conduct investigative actions, which give him the opportunity to personally participate in the preliminary investigation, directly receive the necessary information in sufficient volume, which allows him to make more balanced procedural decisions; - the regulation of the procedural position of the prosecutor of the SRV should be reoriented from the imperative to the dispositive method, which will allow the prosecutor to more freely dispose of the procedural powers belonging to him.

The aim is to identify and substantiate the difference between pre-trial proceedings in criminal cases against foreign citizens and the usual procedure of preliminary investigation, to propose a slightly different procedure of criminal proceedings, which allows to carry out these proceedings effectively and to talk about the differentiation of the criminal procedural form of these proceedings. Methodology. Dialectical method, method of system-structural analysis, formal-logical method, comparative method were used. Conclusions. Pre-trial proceedings in criminal cases against foreign citizens have differences from ordinary proceedings, which makes it possible to attribute it to differentiated forms and critically approach some of the other opinions of scientists expressed in science. Scientific and practical significance. The substantiated provisions on the presence of peculiarities in criminal proceedings in respect of foreign citizens complement the theoretical model of preliminary investigation in this category of cases proposed by scientists and the opinion in the doctrine about the expediency of differentiation of proceedings in criminal cases of this category. From a practical point of view, the application of the developed proposals and their introduction into the criminal procedural legislation will increase the effectiveness of preliminary investigation.