Screening Versus Plea Bargaining: Exactly What Are We Trading Off?
I was delighted to be invited to comment on Ronald Wright and Marc Miller's important and instructive article, The Screening/Bargaining Tradeoff 1 Those familiar with the authors' work, including their original and fascinating criminal procedure casebook, will be unsurprised by many of the article's virtues, including a focus on empirical examination of real-world practice and (perhaps a special case of that more general virtue) attention to practices at the state and local level, where most criminal law enforcement actually occurs.2 Wright and Miller develop some interesting insights into the potential for changes in plea bargaining practices that have frequently been treated as inevitable, and they do so, characteristically, through a close examination of actual practice in a particular district attorney's office. Their provocative article deserves, and will surely receive, a wide and appreciative readership.