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The Structure of Discourse in Misdemeanor Plea Bargaining

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Douglas W. Maynard
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Abstract

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This paper examines transcriptions of tape-recorded plea bargaining sessions. It treats plea bargaining as a naturally occurring activity and seeks to discover formal decision-making patterns. In plea bargaining, participants have ways of exhibiting and responding to positions on how the case they are involved in should be handled. A decision is reached when the negotiating parties agree on a single position, and this is achieved by one of three different patterns or modes. Each pattern involves the presentation of (A) an opportunity for arriving at a mutually acceptable disposition and (B) the option of delaying determination of the disposition by continuance or trial. The ordered ways in which opportunities and options are related to each other constitute a discourse system for negotiation. This system exerts a “pressure” for the here-and-now resolution of cases, independent of negotiating parties' desires and inclinations. The focus on patterns of decision-making reveals a diversity of results and an interesting distribution of cases among the decision-making patterns.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , 1984 , pp. 75 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1981 annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, Toronto. Charles Goodwin, Richard Lempert, Gerald Marwell, Emanuel Schegloff, and Aage Sorensen provided valuable comments, for which I am indebted. The research was partially supported by a grant from the Graduate School at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (Project #110642).

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