Compared to the total number of federal defendants (using 2022 data), there appears to have been a slightly higher rate here of going to trial than defendants overall. Both sets demonstrate that when federal prosecutors bring cases, they don’t tend to miss. Also demonstrated is how federal trials rarely result in an acquittal.
Does this mean judges and juries are biased against federal defendants? Likely not, since again: federal prosecutors tend to only pursue a case they know they can win. Knowing this, it must be a tough job for federal public defence lawyers but someone has to do it.
In the Pew Research article? I arrived at a trial acquittal rate of about 17%.
In fiscal year 2022, only 290 of 71,954 defendants in federal criminal cases – about 0.4% – went to trial and were acquitted, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the latest available statistics from the federal judiciary. Another 1,379 went to trial and were found guilty (1.9%).
While that’s still about 1 chance in 5, that’s still some really bad odds when it comes to the matter of possibly being imprisoned. I imagine most Americans think they’d have better odds than that, but the data shows otherwise, to a scary degree.
Compared to the total number of federal defendants (using 2022 data), there appears to have been a slightly higher rate here of going to trial than defendants overall. Both sets demonstrate that when federal prosecutors bring cases, they don’t tend to miss. Also demonstrated is how federal trials rarely result in an acquittal.
Does this mean judges and juries are biased against federal defendants? Likely not, since again: federal prosecutors tend to only pursue a case they know they can win. Knowing this, it must be a tough job for federal public defence lawyers but someone has to do it.
Doesn’t that article indicate that if you go to trial you have about a 25% chance of being acquitted?
In the Pew Research article? I arrived at a trial acquittal rate of about 17%.
While that’s still about 1 chance in 5, that’s still some really bad odds when it comes to the matter of possibly being imprisoned. I imagine most Americans think they’d have better odds than that, but the data shows otherwise, to a scary degree.