Although much research considers the cognitive processes involved in legal decision making of jurors and judges, decisions to accept or reject plea bargains have received far less attention. We examine decisions in plea scenarios to test predictions of Fuzzy-Trace Theory regarding how cognitive processing style (specifically, greater reliance on gist or verbatim representations) affects plea decisions and how this could lead to suboptimal decision making, especially among defendants who are young adults. Results support Fuzzy-Trace Theory’s predictions by showing that the type of mental representation relied on by an individual (gist or verbatim) predicts plea bargain decisions—with those relying on gist being more influenced by categorical meaning-based distinctions, such as being guilty versus innocent or getting a felony versus misdemeanor. Importantly, results suggest that differences between the 2 groups are not caused by a difference in values but by the fact that individuals relying on verbatim representations are making decisions that do not reflect their underlying values, due to a “hyper-rational” reasoning process. These results reveal a new threat to competent plea decisions—a logical reasoning process that is arguably not fully competent—which has implications for the current plea bargaining system.

In the therapy process, the process of disclosing about stressful or traumatic events is often considered essential. One such manner is through focused expressive writing (FEW) about stressful or traumatic experiences. FEW is related to improvements in health and well-being, across a wide array of outcomes and participant characteristics. As FEW requires limited involvement of other individuals, is relatively low cost, and portable, it has tremendous potential as self-help. In particular, FEW may be an effective means to reach populations unwilling or unable to engage in psychotherapy. A case illustration of FEW is presented. Evidence and future directions for FEW as self-help are reviewed.

Several recent high profile cases, including the case of the West Memphis Three, have revealed (again), that factually innocent defendants do plead guilty. And, more disturbingly, in many of the cases, the defendant's innocence is known, or at least highly suspected, at the time the plea is entered. Innocent defendants plead guilty most often, but not always, in three sets of cases: first, low level offenses where a quick guilty plea provides the key to the cellblock door; second, cases where defendants have been wrongfully convicted, prevail on appeal, and are then offered a plea bargain which will assure their immediate or imminent release and third, where defendants are threatened with harsh alternative punishments if they do not plead guilty. There are three primary contributing factors leading to a criminal justice system where significant numbers of innocent defendants plead guilty to crimes they did not commit. The first is the perceived need that all defendants must plead. The second is the current draconian sentencing regime for criminal offenses. And, the final contributing *Professor of Law, Cornell Law School. The authors would like to thank the participants in the Cornell Law School summer workshop series for their helpful comments and suggestions as well as the participants in the faculty workshop at the University of South Carolina School of Law for their insightful comments and suggestions, and also Professor Anna Roberts for her useful comments and suggestions.

Legal systems often require the translation of qualitative assessments into quantitative judgments, yet the qualitative-to-quantitative conversion is a challenging, understudied process. We conducted an experimental test of predictions from a new theory of juror damage award decision making, examining how 154 lay people engaged in the translation process in recommending money damages for pain and suffering in a personal injury tort case. The experiment varied the presence, size, and meaningfulness of an anchor number to determine how these factors influenced monetary award judgments, perceived difficulty, and subjective meaningfulness of awards. As predicted, variability in awards was high, with awards participants considered to be "medium" (rather than "low" or "high") having the most dispersion. The gist of awards as low, medium, or high fully mediated the relationship between perceived pain/suffering and award amount. Moreover, controlling for participants' perceptions of plaintiffs and defendants, as well as their desire to punish and to take economic losses into account, meaningful anchors predicted unique variance in award judgments: A meaningful large anchor number drove awards up and a meaningful small anchor drove them down, whereas meaningless large and small anchors did not differ significantly. Numeracy did not predict award magnitudes or variability, but surprisingly, more numerate participants reported that it was more difficult to pick an exact figure to compensate the plaintiff for pain and suffering. The results support predictions of the theory about qualitative gist and meaningful anchors, and suggest that we can assist jurors to arrive at damage awards by providing meaningful numbers. (PsycINFO Database Record

The overwhelming majority of both adult and adolescent convictions occur as the result of guilty pleas rather than trial. This means that convictions are often the result of decisions made by defendants rather than jurors. It is therefore important to study decision making in defendants to ensure convictions are occurring in a fair and principled way. Research suggests that the current plea-bargaining system is leading innocent defendants to systematically plead guilty to crimes that they did not commit, and that this may be more widespread in adolescents than adults. The current study uses fuzzy-trace theory to develop and test an explanation of why adolescents are more likely than adults to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit. The authors show that, as predicted, adolescents are more likely than adults to plead guilty when they are innocent, and that this is due to developmental differences in the use of gist representations in decision making whereby values are unlikely to be retrieved and applied when making decisions. These results have implications for postconviction claims of innocence by adolescents, procedural rules governing adolescent plea bargaining, and the practice of adolescent plea bargaining more generally.