The Global Rise of Plea Bargaining and the Innocent Defendant’s Dilemma

Professor Lucian E Dervan of Belmont University College of Law (USA) will deliver a paper titled, ‘The Global Rise of Plea Bargaining and the Innocent Defendant’s Dilemma’.

The last decade has seen a significant growth in the global use of plea bargaining. During that period of time, there has also been significant growth in academic research related to plea bargaining, including research examining how coercive plea practices encourage innocent defendants to falsely condemn themselves and, sometimes, other innocent people.

In his presentation, Professor Lucian Dervan will begin by exploring the history of plea bargaining’s rise in the United States from a tool of corruption in the early 1900s to the dominant means of adjudication today in a system where 98% of federal defendants plead guilty.

He will then examine the phenomenon of false pleas of guilty by the innocent, including discussing psychological deception studies that demonstrate that more than half of innocent participants will falsely confess in return for the benefits of a bargain. He will then consider the global growth of plea bargaining in recent decades and discuss his recent psychological deception studies in Japan and South Korea. F

inally, Professor Dervan will discuss the American Bar Association (ABA) Plea Bargain Task Force he chaired from 2019-2023 and the 14 Principles adopted by the ABA as a mechanism for creating a fairer, more transparent, and more just system of criminal adjudication.

Biography 

Lucian E. Dervan is a Professor of Law and Director of Criminal Justice Studies at Belmont University College of Law in Nashville, Tennessee, where his work focuses on domestic and international criminal law. He also serves as the Founding Director of the Plea Bargaining Institute, the global intellectual home for academics, policymakers, advocacy organizations, and practitioners working in the plea bargaining space to share knowledge and collaborate (https://pleabargaininginstitute.com/). 

He is the author of five books, including the soon to be released The Cost of Plea Bargains: Reflections and Recommendations from the ABA Plea Bargain Task Force. He also regularly lectures regarding criminal law and has testified before the U.S. Congress on two occasions, has testified before the Federal Senate of Brazil regarding pending plea bargaining legislation, and was recently invited to conduct a plea bargaining training in Europe for the U.S. Department of State.

Lucian is an active member of the American Bar Association (ABA) and currently serves on the ABA Criminal Justice Section’s Executive Committee and Council. Previously, he served on the ABA Board of Governors, as Chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section, and as Chair of the ABA Commission on the American Jury.

From 2019 until 2023, Lucian served as Chair of the ABA Plea Bargain Task Force. In February 2023, the task force released its report containing 14 Principles to provide a path forward to a fairer, more transparent, and more just system of criminal adjudication. In August 2023, the 14 Principles were presented to the ABA House of Delegates in Resolution 502 and were overwhelmingly adopted as the official policy of the association.

Prior to joining the academy, Lucian served as a law clerk to the Honorable Phyllis A. Kravitch of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He also practiced law with King & Spalding LLP, where he was a member of the Special Matters and Government Investigations team. Lucian was born in Adelaide, South Australia and attended Saint Peter’s College before moving to the United States as a teenager.