Plea bargaining and penal orders: an empirical approach to disappearing criminal trials

The present dissertation investigates the global adoption and use of administratization mechanisms, which enable the imposition of criminal convictions without trial. Two administratization mechanisms are currently adopted worldwide: plea bargaining and penal orders. This dissertation shows that administratization procedures are regulated in 125 jurisdictions worldwide, with plea bargaining being allowed in 101 jurisdictions and penal orders in 51. Historical patterns are explored, discussing the adoption of plea bargaining and penal orders in connection with the comparative success of inquisitorial and adversarial models in criminal procedure and with the more recent and global strive for efficiency in criminal law enforcement. The use in practice of administratization mechanisms is also explored, showing their prevalence over ordinary trials in Europe, the Americas, and Eastern Asia. Reasons driving the adoption of plea bargaining are analyzed in cross-country regressions, revealing the significant influence of legal origins, Sharia, democratic governance, and material resources. Legal origins and material resources, together with the existence of jury trials, also correlate with differing levels of use of plea bargaining across jurisdictions. Specific factors influencing the use of administratization mechanisms are then explored with reference to Italy through instrumental variable analyses. The results show that longer trial delays reduce the use of both plea bargaining and penal orders in Italy. The favored explanation is that the Italian criminal statute of limitations, by mandating the acquittal of defendants in case of longer trial delays, provides defendants with strong incentives against the use of administratization mechanisms. The use of both plea bargaining and penal orders is also reduced in Italy by higher concentrations of lawyers in judicial districts. In fact, when facing higher market competition, lawyers might advise their clients against the use of administratization mechanisms, since ordinary trials yield higher financial returns for them.