Prosecutors’ Charging Decisions in Sexual Assault Cases
Prosecutors’ Charging Decisions in Sexual Assault Cases
June 8, 2012
“ Case screening is the gateway to the criminal justice system. Prosecutors, acting as gatekeepers, decide which instances of alleged victimization will be passed on for adjudication by the courts” (Frohmann, 1991, p. 213). As Supreme Court Justice Jackson acknowledged in 1940, “the prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America” (Davis, 1969, p.190). Frohmann examined the powerful discretion prosecutors have in their justification for sexual assault case rejections in her research article, Discrediting Victim’s allegations of Sexual Assault: Prosecutorial Accounts of Case Rejections. Her research was replicated and extended in a 2001 study by Spohn, Beichner, and Davis-Frenzil titled Prosecutorial Justifications for Sexual Assault Case Rejection: Guarding the “Gateway to Justice”. Frohmann conducted a seventeen month field study. She observed the prosecutorial case screening process of over three hundred cases in the sexual assault units of two separate west coast district attorney (DA) offices in 1989 and 1990 (Frohman,1991). She followed up her case screening with interviews of prosecutors in the sexual assault units and investigating officers to analyze their explanations and rationalizations for case rejections (Spohn, Beichner, & Davis-Frenzel, 2001). Frohmann notes that the DA’s office measures prosecutorial performance by conviction rates, encouraging prosecutors to pursue only winnable cases. Frohmann suggests that taking uncertain cases to trial that may result in not guilty verdicts is discouraged in three ways. First, the DA’s office views too many not-guilty verdicts as prosecutor incompetency. Second, prosecutors are rewarded for rejecting cases because it demonstrates their loyalty to office by reducing the huge case load of an overcrowded court system. Third, judges frown upon prosecutors pursuing cases that
June 8, 2012
“ Case screening is the gateway to the criminal justice system. Prosecutors, acting as gatekeepers, decide which instances of alleged victimization will be passed on for adjudication by the courts” (Frohmann, 1991, p. 213). As Supreme Court Justice Jackson acknowledged in 1940, “the prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America” (Davis, 1969, p.190). Frohmann examined the powerful discretion prosecutors have in their justification for sexual assault case rejections in her research article, Discrediting Victim’s allegations of Sexual Assault: Prosecutorial Accounts of Case Rejections. Her research was replicated and extended in a 2001 study by Spohn, Beichner, and Davis-Frenzil titled Prosecutorial Justifications for Sexual Assault Case Rejection: Guarding the “Gateway to Justice”. Frohmann conducted a seventeen month field study. She observed the prosecutorial case screening process of over three hundred cases in the sexual assault units of two separate west coast district attorney (DA) offices in 1989 and 1990 (Frohman,1991). She followed up her case screening with interviews of prosecutors in the sexual assault units and investigating officers to analyze their explanations and rationalizations for case rejections (Spohn, Beichner, & Davis-Frenzel, 2001). Frohmann notes that the DA’s office measures prosecutorial performance by conviction rates, encouraging prosecutors to pursue only winnable cases. Frohmann suggests that taking uncertain cases to trial that may result in not guilty verdicts is discouraged in three ways. First, the DA’s office views too many not-guilty verdicts as prosecutor incompetency. Second, prosecutors are rewarded for rejecting cases because it demonstrates their loyalty to office by reducing the huge case load of an overcrowded court system. Third, judges frown upon prosecutors pursuing cases that
References: Blumberg, A. (1967). The practice of law as confidence game: Organizational co-optation of a profession. Law and Society Review, 1, 15-39. Davis, K. C. (1969). Discretionary justice. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Frohmann, L. (1991). Discrediting victims’ allegations of sexual assault: Prosecutorial accounts of case rejections. Social Problems, 38, 213-226. Spohn, C., Beichner, D., & Davis-Frenzel, E. (2001). Prosecutorial justifications for sexual assault case rejection: Guarding the ‘gateway to justice '. Social Problems, 48, 206-235.