How do defendants choose their trial court? Evidence for a heuristic processing account

Abstract

In jurisdictions with two or more tiers of criminal courts, some defendants can choose the type of trial court to be tried in. This may involve a trade-off between the probability of acquittal/conviction and the estimated severity of sentence if convicted. For instance, in England and Wales, the lower courts have a higher conviction rate but limited sentencing powers, whereas the higher courts have a higher acquittal rate but greater sentencing powers. We examined 255 offenders' choice of trial court type using a hypothetical scenario where innocence and guilt was manipulated. Participants' choices were better predicted by a lexicographic than utility maximization model. A greater proportion of ``guilty'' participants chose the lower court compared to their ``innocent'' counterparts, and estimated sentence length was more important to the former than latter group. The present findings provide further support for heuristic decision-making in the criminal justice domain, and have implications for legal policy-making.

Keywords

• trial
• court
• choice
• subjective expected utility
• lexicographic model.