Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2007
ISSN
2156-6208
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Language
en-US
Abstract
We provide an additional justification for the pro-defendant bias in Anglo-American criminal procedure that supplements the most commonly forwarded justifications to date. The most commonly forwarded rationale for the prodefendant bias is that the costs of false convictions-specifically, the sanctioning and deterrence costs associated with the erroneous imposition of criminal sanctions-are greater than the costs of false acquittals. We argue that this rationale provides at best a partial justification for the extent of prodefendant procedural rules. Under our justification, prodefendant protections serve primarily as constraints on the costs associated with rent seeking in the law enforcement process. The theory developed here explains key institutional features of Anglo-American criminal procedure and provides a positive theory of the case law as well. The theory is also corroborated by empirical evidence on corruption from several countries
Recommended Citation
Keith N. Hylton & Vikramaditya Khanna,
A Public Choice Theory of Criminal Procedure
,
in
15
Supreme Court Economic Review
61
(2007).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/2631
