Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka möjligheten att effektivisera det svenska rättsväsendet med hjälp av ett plea bargain-liknande institut. Plea bargain skulle medföra kortare processer vid brottmål vilket i sin tur medför ett billigare rättssystem och mindre tryck på domstolarna. Kostnaden för en sådan vinning kan vara minskad rättssäkerhet och konflikter med gällande rätt och allmänna principer.

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Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1983. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 42-47).

Scholars have identified four primary types of justice: distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational. These four types of justice correspond, respectively, to the perceived fairness of one’s outcomes, to the perceived fairness of the procedures used to determine one’s outcomes, to the degree to which people are treated with politeness, dignity, and respect by decision makers, and to whether individuals receive complete, truthful, and timely explanations of procedures and decisions. A significant amount of research has examined how perceptions of justice affect individuals’ attitudes and behavior (Denver, 2011). For example, research has examined how district attorneys shape victims’ and offenders’ perceptions of justice (Patterson-Badali, Care, & Broeking, 2007). Less is known, however, about district attorneys’ own perceptions of justice. Understanding how district attorneys view justice gives us insight into their decisions they make. These decisions include how to dispose of cases, what charges to bring against defendants, what sentence to recommend, and even how victims should be treated throughout the court process. With respect to how cases are handled in the criminal justice system, jury trials are often considered the epitome of justice. Proponents of jury trials argue that limiting or abolishing jury trials would undermine the public’s faith in the criminal justice system (Roberts & Hough, 2011). Nevertheless, the court system has confirmed the existence of “the vanishing trial,” a term used to describe the steadily declining role of trials (civil and criminal) in the American legal system (Frampton, 2012). The current study examines the court and county factors that affect district attorney’s perceptions of four types of justice: distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational. This research was based on data from a telephone and email survey conducted by the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University and county data from the United States Census Bureau and the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 199-203).

The majority of criminal cases are disposed by the mechanism of plea negotiation in the federal jurisdiction of the United States. This procedure has replaced adversarial trial tradition of the U.S. criminal justice system for decades. Since 2014, China has initiated plea negotiation in the criminal justice system. Following the efforts of legislation and judiciary, China has formulated a Sinicized concessional criminal justice system. Up to now, over 86% criminal cases in China are handled with the plea negotiation system without appeals. Motivated by the same goals of procedural economy and systematic efficiency, these two nations have developed the plea negotiation system into the core driver of criminal justice dynamics. This ubiquity has led the similarities appearing in the adversarial system of the US and the inquisitorial system of China substantially and procedurally. In the light of the costs and benefits analysis, it raises research questions as follows: what needs to be ensured where a defendant posits in a plea negotiation process? What are the costs and benefits of defendant’s decision making? Whether this cost-saving procedure achieves systemic efficiency and fairness? What can be rebuilt for improving the current system? This article is aimed to propose some new practical ideas that may improve the transparency and the fairness of plea negotiation process, and finally earn trust from the criminal defendants and the public at large. Through a comparative study, this article outlines the advantages and disadvantages of the plea negotiation systems in the U.S. and China. Thereafter, this article channels the practical measures to rebuild the plea negotiation system in these two nations. It is also aimed to contribute some insights to other nations’ re-consideration of reforming the negotiated criminal justice system in the near future. / Temple University. James E. Beasley School of Law / Law

Recent research has led to a growing awareness that the dominant method of settling criminal cases in the United States involves disposition without trial. The overwhelming majority of criminal cases are settled by guilty pleas, and the majority of guilty plea dispositions involve some kind of bargain on the charge or sentence. The purpose of the present study was to examine and analyze the phenomenon of negotiating the guilty plea in terms of its relationship to the functional needs and ideal goals of the court system. A basic assumption of this study was that case disposition through a bargaining process provides for both functional needs and ideal goals which are not clearly provided for in the trial system. A detailed examination of felony case disposition without trial in one Pacific Northwest urban court system was undertaken to ascertain the precise nature of the bargaining process. Records regarding the nature and outcomes of felony dispositions in 1976 and 1977 were researched, along with information on the formal structure, procedures and pOlicies of the court organization. Interviews with prosecutors, public defenders and judges in the felony court system provided attitudinal data. Observations of guilty plea hearings and negotiation conferences allowed the researcher to record actual activities in the disposition process. The data indicated that the majority of cases were settled by guilty pleas and that the majority of guilty pleas involved some kind of bargain. Plea negotiation in this court system was routinized, formalized and highly structured. The bargaining process was prosecutor-dominated, in part due to the District Attorney Office policy which was noticeably inflexible in terms of bargaining criteria. The one commodity of power held by the defense attorney was strength of case. If the defense could find legal "loopholes" in the state's case, the chances of the defendant getting a good deal improved. This emphasis on legal factors appeared to strengthen the professional orientation as well as the adversary perspective of the opposing attorneys. Pleading guilty to a reduced charge resulted in the greatest likelihood of a defendant receiving a non-incarceration sentence. The majority of reductions were to offenses necessarily included in the initial charge. Conviction by trial resulted in the highest, proportion of incarceration sentences of all closing types. However, there was evidence that circumstances of the case and the defendant were influential regarding the likelihood of incarceration at the sentencing stage. A balancing factor aFpeared to be at work according to comparisons of the 1976 and 1977 data. Changes in the District Attorney Office policy instituted in 1977 expanded the list of non-reducible offenses. While the proportion of trial closings consequently increased for these non-reducible offenses, this increase was offset by a decrease in the proportion of trials for offenses not included in the non-reducible category. Generally, the findings supported the theoretical assumption that disposition by guilty plea negotiation could fulfill functional needs of the court system within a legalistic framework.

Under senare år har diskussionen om den eventuella användningen av plea bargain och kronvittnen i det svenska rättsystemet aktualiserats genom olika utredningar. Med plea bargain och kronvittnen menas förenklat system där åklagaren kan förhandla med den misstänkte som genom att erkänna brottet eller informera om andras brott kan få en mildare behandling. I utredningarna har diskuterats alltifrån införande av systemen på straffrättsområdet genom fängelsestraffskommitténs utredning från 1986, till mera avgränsade områden för att öka allmänhetens förtroende för det svenska näringslivet genom att få bukt med stora och komplicerade ekobrott och inom konkurrensrätten då eftergiftssystemet för kartelldeltagare skulle införas under början av 2000-talet. Gemensamt för dessa utredningar har varit att man öppnat för en diskussion kring möjligheten att byta information från misstänka mot ett mildare straff, oavsett om detta bestått i strafflindring, åtalsbegränsningar eller eftergift och nedsättning av konkurrensskadeavgifter.

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Abstract It is often stated that plea-bargaining is an indispensable part of a fair and efficient criminal justice system. By observing sentencing hearings in the Provincial Court of Manitoba this thesis shows that some form of plea bargaining is involved in a substantial majority of cases. Almost half of these plea bargained matters resulted in joint recommendations on sentence. However, the vast majority of these joint recommendations did not involve a true plea bargain. In this limited study, it was observed that the presiding judge accepted all joint recommendations as presented by counsel. One of the goals of plea bargaining is to arrive at joint recommendations on sentence. Though lawyers on both sides of the courtroom may perceive an advantage to joint recommendations, for the accused these advantages may be illusory. Judges routinely accept joint recommendations despite not being the progeny of true plea bargains involving a quid pro quo. This research suggests that the vast majority of joint recommendations are born of cultural expedience rather than as a result of true plea bargains. These cultural joint recommendations encroach significantly on the judicial function and may erode public confidence in the administration of justice. The continued proliferation of cultural joint recommendations may further entrench a culture of expedience in our criminal justice system and could potentially lead to higher sentences for offenders.