Plea decision-making: the influence of attorney expertise, trustworthiness, and recommendation

ABSTRACT

Attorney recommendations influence defendant plea decisions; and the degree of influence likely rests on the perceived trustworthiness and level of expertise of the attorney (factors of source credibility). We explored attorney source credibility factors and how these characteristics influence defendants’ plea decision-making. MTurk participants read a hypothetical plea scenario and were asked to imagine themselves as the defendant in a DWI/DUI case making a plea decision; in the scenario, we manipulated the defense attorney’s level of trustworthiness, expertise, and plea recommendation. There was a significant interaction between attorney recommendation and trustworthiness on defendants’ plea decisions; participants who were advised to accept the guilty plea were more likely to plead guilty when the attorney was high in trustworthiness compared to low in trustworthiness. Attorney trustworthiness did not affect plea decisions for defendants advised to reject the guilty plea. Importantly, attorney trustworthiness affected defendants’ decision to follow the attorney’s recommendation and ultimate plea decision (regardless of expertise), and attorney expertise affected defendants’ confidence in their decision (regardless of trustworthiness). Results suggest individual-level characteristics of defense attorneys affect the influence of the attorney and their recommendation, and ultimately defendants’ plea decision-making.

KEYWORDS:

• Plea bargaining
• defense attorneys
• guilty pleas
• attorney influence
• effective assistance of counsel

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We conducted exploratory analyses of the effect of gender on our key DVs. There was a significant multivariate effect of gender on attorney ratings, λ = .97, F (2, 292) = 4.25, p = .015, η² = .03. Males rated the attorney as more influential (M = 3.76) compared to females (M = 3.26), F (1, 293) = 7.70, p = .006, η² = .03. And males rated their overall perception of the attorney as higher (M = 4.18) than females (M = 3.83), F (1, 293) = 5.17, p = .024, η² = .02. In this sample, there was not enough variation to conduct any analyses exploring the effect of participant race on key DVs (i.e., our sample was 76% White).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by a Hatfield Public Service grant (Portland State University). Selected findings were presented at the 2018 American Society of Criminology annual conference (Atlanta, GA).