RT Article
T1 Public defenders versus private attorneys: A comparison of criminal case disposition outcomes by type of counsel in Mexico
JF Criminology & criminal justice
VO 25
IS 2
SP 393
OP 420
A1 Quintana-Navarrete, Miguel
A2 Fondevila, Gustavo
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1920374132
AB Recent research on the effectiveness of public defenders vis-à-vis private attorneys in criminal cases has not exhaustively analyzed trial avoiding mechanisms and other pretrial outcomes and expanded beyond the United States. This article addresses these gaps using a novel data set from the Mexican criminal justice system, where trial avoiding mechanisms have been recently introduced. We show that both private and public defenders avoid trials, but at different costs. Cases with private attorneys are more likely to end in dismissals, especially via alternative procedures (dispute resolution mechanisms and diversion), while cases with public defenders are more likely to end in convictions through abbreviated procedures (guilty pleas). Resource constraints and their membership to the courtroom workgroup might incentivize or pressure public defenders to cooperate with the prosecution to secure a guilty plea, thus facilitating the conviction of defendants in administrative procedures that lack the full due process protections of trials.
K1 trial avoiding mechanisms
K1 public defense
K1 Mexico
K1 Criminal Justice
K1 Case Disposition
DO 10.1177/17488958221116999