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"The State (Never) Rests: How Excessive Prosecutor Caseloads Harm Criminal Defendants"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this interesting-looking new piece on SSRN from Adam Gershowitz and Laura Killinger. Here is the abstract: Although dozens of scholars have documented the appalling underfunding of indigent defense in the United States, virtually no attention has been paid to the overburdening of prosecutors. In many large jurisdictions, prosecutors handle caseloads that are as large as those handled by public defenders. Counter-intuitively, when prosecutors shoulder excessive caseloads, it is criminal defendants who are harmed. Because overburdened prosecutors do not have sufficient time and resources for their cases, they fail to identify less culpable defendants who are deserving of more lenient plea bargains. Prosecutors also lack the time to determine which defendants should be transferred to specialty drug courts where they have a better chance at rehabilitation...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 10, 2010 (boomark / email).