4 ms·

I would love a citation on where you are getting "above 99%" for the US. What I managed to find easily just now in https://www.justice.gov/usao/reading_room/re

I would love a citation on where you are getting "above 99%" for the US. What I managed to find easily just now in https://www.justice.gov/usao/reading_room/reports/asr2012/12statrpt.pdf https://www.justice.gov/usao/reading_room/reports/asr2012/12... page 9 has: "Of the 87,709 defendants terminated during Fiscal Year 2012, 80,963, or 93 percent, either pled guilty or were found guilty." So quite high, but not anything like over 99%. This is federal cases, though, so maybe state cases have higher enough volume and conviction rates to make the overall number over 99%? Again, I would love to see hard data.

shkkmo 5y ago
> Japan’s often-cited conviction rate of over 99 percent is a percentage of all prosecuted cases, not just contested cases. It is eye-catching, but misleading, since it counts as convictions those cases in which defendants pleaded guilty. If the U.S. conviction rate were calculated in a similar manner it would also exceed 99 percent since so few cases are contested at trial (in FY 2018 only 320 of the total number of 79,704 federal defendants were acquitted at trial).[0] [0] https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/carlos-ghosn-and-japans-99-conviction-rate/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/carlos-ghosn-and-japans-99-c... Edit: looking at your linked PDF I think the above quote is missing the thousands of misdemeanors dismissed by judges. This just goes the show the difficulty of comparing legal systems using a single number from each.
bogomipz 5y ago
There's a citation linked in my GP comment above.
- bzbarsky 5y ago
  Thank you; I had missed that. As the sibling comment from shkkmo points out, not all prosecuted cases that result in a "not guilty" involve acquittal at trial. But I will grant that it's hard to talk about numbers here without very carefully defining what exactly we will be counting...

shkkmo 5y ago

> Japan’s often-cited conviction rate of over 99 percent is a percentage of all prosecuted cases, not just contested cases. It is eye-catching, but misleading, since it counts as convictions those cases in which defendants pleaded guilty. If the U.S. conviction rate were calculated in a similar manner it would also exceed 99 percent since so few cases are contested at trial (in FY 2018 only 320 of the total number of 79,704 federal defendants were acquitted at trial).[0] [0] https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/carlos-ghosn-and-japans-99-conviction-rate/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/carlos-ghosn-and-japans-99-c... Edit: looking at your linked PDF I think the above quote is missing the thousands of misdemeanors dismissed by judges. This just goes the show the difficulty of comparing legal systems using a single number from each.

bogomipz 5y ago

There's a citation linked in my GP comment above.

bzbarsky 5y ago
Thank you; I had missed that. As the sibling comment from shkkmo points out, not all prosecuted cases that result in a "not guilty" involve acquittal at trial. But I will grant that it's hard to talk about numbers here without very carefully defining what exactly we will be counting...