Teresa J. White’s scientific contributions

Plea bargaining was banned by Alaska's Attorney General in August of 1975. The ban extended to all crimes, and forbade both charge and sentence negotiations. Its effects, evaluated by the Alaska Judicial Council in a two-year study, were to increase some sentences, increase trials modestly, and-surprisingly-increase the productivity of the criminal justice system. Explicit plea bargaining appears to have been substantially reduced, without any noticeable commensurate increase in implicit bargaining. The Alaska experience strongly suggests the need to reexamine contemporary thinking about plea bargaining.