Papers by Ronald F. Wright
Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 2017
In emphasizing the importance of institutional fabric as a subject of study, we build on the insi... more In emphasizing the importance of institutional fabric as a subject of study, we build on the insights of Peter Nardulli and his co-authors, who proclaimed nearly three decades ago, that limiting research on criminal justice institutions to case outcomes "would be like limiting research on Congress to votes."
Social Science Research Network, Jul 7, 2020
Prosecutors routinely decline to file charges in individual cases; sometimes they also announce g... more Prosecutors routinely decline to file charges in individual cases; sometimes they also announce general policies about declinations that apply prospectively to entire categories of cases. The legitimacy of these categorical declination policies is in dispute. Current accounts of declinations rely on arguments about the traditional activities of prosecutors and the distinction between executive and legislative functions in constitutional separation of powers doctrine. This Article argues that chief prosecutors in state court systems hold competing loyalties to statewide voters and local voters. These duties to state and local polities should also influence the declination policies that a prosecutor adopts. Duties to statewide voters derive from the fact that state legislatures create the criminal codes that prosecutors enforce. State government also funds some of the work of local prosecutors, but that funding is not sufficient to allow full enforcement of the criminal law. The state-level polity, therefore, empowers the local prosecutor to allocate scarce resources and to decline charges—even for entire categories of cases—as a means of promoting public safety that matches local conditions. Local prosecutors can meet their obligations to the statewide polity by framing their policies as rebuttable presumptions against filing charges and by justifying those policies as a reallocation of limited resources. Duties to the local polity can add further legitimacy to a prosecutor’s declination policy. Local views about the relative importance of crime should matter, particularly in circumstances where local governments fund aspects of court operations, the effects of crime and law enforcement are concentrated locally, and state law grants autonomy to the local prosecutor
Criminal Procedures: The Police: Cases, Statutes, and Executive Materials, Sixth Edition, is a co... more Criminal Procedures: The Police: Cases, Statutes, and Executive Materials, Sixth Edition, is a comprehensive treatment of criminal procedure that depicts the enormous variety within criminal justice systems by examining the procedures and policies of both federal and state systems and looking at sources of law and doctrine from multiple institutions. This “real-world” text offers students and instructors a deliberate focus on the realities of the high-volume circumstances that surround criminal procedure. An updated selection of cases and statutes as well as expanded coverage of important areas ensures the currency and timeliness of the Sixth Edition of this highly regarded casebook.https://scholar.smu.edu/facbooks/1010/thumbnail.jp
The Oxford Handbook of Prosecutors and Prosecution, 2021
Community prosecution seeks input from local groups to shape the priorities of the prosecutor’s o... more Community prosecution seeks input from local groups to shape the priorities of the prosecutor’s office. Prosecutors who listen to the community aim to develop a relationship of trust between the community and the local prosecutor’s office; such outreach is especially valuable in connection with racial minority groups with a history of negative experiences with criminal justice actors. A community prosecution strategy calls for the office to work with community partners both upstream and downstream from the criminal courtroom. The upstream efforts involve diversion of defendants out of criminal proceedings and into treatment and accountability programs outside the courts. Downstream efforts include programs to promote the smooth re-entry of people returning to the community after serving a criminal sentence. Community prosecution is best accomplished in offices committed to collection and use of data, transparency, and accountability to the public.
In this essay, we catalog and explain four stock images that prosecutors use most often when they... more In this essay, we catalog and explain four stock images that prosecutors use most often when they describe their own duties and those of their counterparts across the aisle. Prosecutors speak frequently about “wearing the white hat,” “going over to the dark side,” “being a true believer,” and “drinking the Kool-Aid.” These images — and the narratives in which they are embedded — reveal important aspects of the prosecutors’ professional self-image and their relationships with defense attorneys. In so doing, they inspire new ways of thinking about how to engage prosecutors in efforts to reform criminal justice.
Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 2017
The Supreme Court’s decision in Herring v. United States authorizes police to defeat the Fourth A... more The Supreme Court’s decision in Herring v. United States authorizes police to defeat the Fourth Amendment’s protections through a process we call evidence laundering. Evidence laundering occurs when one police officer makes a constitutional mistake when gathering evidence and then passes that evidence along to a second officer, who develops it further and then delivers it to prosecutors for use in a criminal case. When courts admit the evidence based on the good faith of the second officer, the original constitutional taint disappears in the wash. In the years since Herring was decided, courts have allowed evidence laundering in a variety of contexts, from cases involving flawed databases to cases stemming from faulty judgments and communication lapses in law enforcement teams. Courts typically zero in on individual officer behavior, or limit their review to a single incident rather than considering the entire course of conduct. In so doing, they have taken the concept of good faith...
Plea bargaining happens in almost every criminal case, yet there is little empirical study about ... more Plea bargaining happens in almost every criminal case, yet there is little empirical study about what actually happens when prosecutors and defense lawyers negotiate. This article looks into the bargaining part of plea bargaining. It reports on the responses of over 500 public defenders who participated in our nationwide survey about their objectives and practices during plea negotiations. The survey responses create a rare empirical test of a major tenet of negotiation theory, the claim that attorneys bargain in the “shadow of the trial.” This is a theory that some defenders embrace and others reject. Describing the factors they believe to be important in plea negotiations, some public defenders – those who emphasize the importance of collateral consequences or the pre-trial custody of their clients – do not stress the likely outcome at trial. Instead, these attorneys focus on the wants and needs of clients, hoping to persuade the prosecutor to operate outside a trial-prediction fr...
Law & Social Inquiry, 2016
In this article we rethink the connection between prosecutorial experience and conviction psychol... more In this article we rethink the connection between prosecutorial experience and conviction psychology that undergirds much of the academic literature about wrongful convictions. The conviction psychology account of prosecutorial behavior asserts that prosecutorial susceptibility to cognitive biases deepens over time, thereby increasing the risk that prosecutors will become involved in wrongful convictions the longer they stay in the profession. Our interviews with more than 200 state prosecutors call into question the basis for this asserted correlation between prosecutorial experience and risk of misconduct. The prosecutors we met consistently reported that, all else equal, prosecutors tend to become more balanced, rather than more adversarial, over time. Hence, the prosecutors who present the greatest risk of producing a wrongful conviction are those who are either inexperienced or resistant to the normal maturation process. For this reason, we suggest that wrongful conviction rese...
Minn. L. Rev., 1995
Part of the Law Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University... more Part of the Law Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Minnesota Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Minnesota Law Review collection by an authorized administrator of the Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
The Yale Law Journal, 1984
The Fourth Amendment 1 controls both criminal and civil law enforcement activities, yet the court... more The Fourth Amendment 1 controls both criminal and civil law enforcement activities, yet the courts have created distinctive methodologies 2 for deciding cases within each area. They have applied a stricter, more ruleoriented "probable cause" analysis 3 in criminal cases, but have resorted to a more flexible and less rule-bound "balancing" methodology in civil cases. Several recent Supreme Court decisions, 4 however, have begun to close this gap between civil and criminal cases by making balancing unexceptional in criminal cases. The Supreme Court has begun to reshape the Fourth Amendment's criminal methodology in the image of the civil. This Note argues that this recent expansion of the balancing approach is regrettable. Admittedly, it was time for a change in the role of the balancing methodology. We cannot cabin balancing within the civil cases if we take seriously the current explanations of when balancing should take place. But in adjusting the role of balancing, the Court should have restricted its use rather than expanded it. In all but a few types of cases, the traditional methodology of the criminal area offers a more workable and appropriate protection of the personal privacy interests secured by the Fourth Amendment than does balancing. 1. The Fourth Amendment provides: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. U.S. CONST. amend. IV. The text makes no distinction between civil and criminal searches and seizures. 2. The "methodologies" discussed in this Note can be defined as the procedures used to formulate Fourth Amendment issues rather than the substantive factors used to determine the outcomes. This Note's analysis begins with the commonplace idea that procedures have their own substantive implications. 3. Probable cause to search is that level of information which would allow a man of reasonable caution to believe that the thing to be searched for or seized will be found in a designated location. Probable cause is usually defined with regard to arrest warrants. See Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175-76 (1949). The definition changes only slightly for searches, focusing on location rather than likelihood of guilt. See Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547, 558 (1978). This standard governs most criminal cases, except for stop-and-frisk situations. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) (officer may search suspect for weapons absent probable cause in order to protect himself). As used in this Note, "probable cause methodology" encompasses the warrant requirement. Before making a search or seizure, investigators must satisfy a magistrate that probable cause actually exists. Most types of probable cause searches or seizures must be warranted. Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 757-60 (1979). 4. See, e.g., Michigan v. Long, 103 S. Ct. 3469 (1983) (protective search of individual extends to search of his car); United States v. Place, 103 S. Ct. 2637 (1983) (warrantless seizure of luggage and passenger in airport); Florida v. Royer, 103 S. Ct. 1319 (1983) (plurality opinion) (investigative detention of suspect in airport).
Because state prosecutors in the United States typically work in local offices, reformers often s... more Because state prosecutors in the United States typically work in local offices, reformers often surmise that greater coordination within and among those offices will promote sound prosecution practices across the board. Real transformation, however, requires commitment not only from elected chief prosecutors but also from line prosecutors—the attorneys who handle the daily caseloads of the office. When these individuals’ amenability to reform goals and sense of professional identity is at odds with the leadership, the success and sustainability of reforms may be at risk. To better understand this group of criminal justice professionals and their power to influence system reforms, we set out to learn what motivates state prosecutors to do their work. Using original interview data from more than 260 prosecutors in nine different offices, we identify four principal career motivations for working state prosecutors: (1) reinforcing one’s core absolutist identity, (2) gaining trial skills...
Federal Sentencing Reporter, 1988
Part of the Law Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University... more Part of the Law Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Minnesota Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Minnesota Law Review collection by an authorized administrator of the Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
While plea bargaining dominates the practice of criminal law, preparation for trial remains centr... more While plea bargaining dominates the practice of criminal law, preparation for trial remains central to defense attorneys’ training. Negotiation is still peripheral to that training. Defense lawyers enter practice with little exposure to negotiation techniques and strategies in the plea bargaining context, the most significant skills they use every day. Empirical research on plea negotiations has concentrated on outcomes of negotiations rather than the process itself. Our multi-phase field study examines the negotiation techniques that attorneys use during plea bargaining, as well as their preparation and training for negotiation. This Article explores the data on the training aspects of our research. It then discusses implications of the failure to train for bargaining by noting a variety of areas where training might improve case outcomes for defendants. Surveys, interviews, and training agenda confirm our intuition about the lack of training for bargaining: Public defenders receiv...
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020
Diversion programs allow criminal justice actors to send defendants out of the court system, comp... more Diversion programs allow criminal justice actors to send defendants out of the court system, compelling them instead to attend treatment programs, participate in educational opportunities, and/or perform community service. These programs exist for both adult and juvenile offenders. Although some diversion programs are administered within the court system, prosecutors design and operate a substantial number of these programs themselves. Because the prosecutor does not need to obtain input from judges or other actors in these programs, they carry higher risks of performance problems, such as net widening and unequal application of program criteria. Furthermore, because of the local focus of most prosecutors’ offices in the United States, their diversion programs differ from place to place. The published program evaluations are too often site-specific, offering few general insights about this category of programs. The fragmented literature about prosecutor-led diversion programs should expand the metrics of success for these programs and monitor the effects of the prosecutor-dominated governance structure. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 4 is January 13, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2011
treats inside the agency as a black box). 14. See infra notes 98-100 and accompanying text.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2009
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
ABSTRACT The Supreme Court's 1995 opinion in Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton held t... more ABSTRACT The Supreme Court's 1995 opinion in Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton held that a school board can require student-athletes to submit to random urinalysis drug testing as a condition of playing on the school team. In 1995, drug testing for students was not a common practice, and was not a matter of extensive public debate or litigation. This article details how the Acton decision popularized the idea of drug testing in schools and helped it spread nationwide. It reviews the litigation and public discussion about school drug testing, paying special attention to the practices of school districts in one state (North Carolina), and shows how these discussions and practices changed after the Acton decision. After the Acton case, school boards debated the question far more often and began to adopt drug testing policies. When they talked about drug testing, school boards framed their proposals in terms dictated by the Supreme Court's opinion--focusing on the nature of consent that various student subgroups give--rather than talking about the real concerns of school officials, such as the impact of drug tests on the health and well-being of all students. The Supreme Court created the debate and pushed it in a particular direction. Much of the legal activity described in the article does not appear in the pages of appellate judicial opinions. Instead, the legal arguments take place in official school board meetings, in discussions among school officials, and among citizens. The pages of local newspapers reflect these public debates more faithfully than the pages of case reporters. Thus, in addition to discussing the consequences of abrupt Supreme Court opinions, the article considers the blind spots of judico-centric legal scholarship. The discussion tracks the number of news stories on the subject of random drug testing in schools to measure its prominence as a topic of public debate.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2002
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Papers by Ronald F. Wright