By Adam Pagnucco.
Two years ago, Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy commissioned an outside report studying the role of race and ethnicity in his office’s prosecutions. At the time, McCarthy said that he was confident in his office’s decision making “but I want to see if there are blind spots, if there is implicit bias.”
The report is now complete. Its authors include academics from the University of Maryland, Towson University and George Mason University. The report examined case management data from 2018-2022, which included 25,962 misdemeanor and felony charges in 8,795 circuit court cases. The researchers employed both descriptive and multivariate regression analysis to make a number of findings. Overall, they did not find that White, Black and Latino people had identical experiences in the criminal justice system. For example, they found higher rates of incarceration for Black and Latino convicted defendants than for Whites. But they also did not find “overarching or systemic patterns of racial disparity” in prosecutions.
The report’s cover.
The conclusions section of the report is reprinted below.
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Conclusions
Defendants of color tend to be overrepresented at various stages of the American criminal legal system. One essential component of the system that has received relatively little attention in this regard is the American prosecutor. Prosecutors control myriad impactful decisions – they decide what charges to indict, how to alter charges during plea negotiations, and whether or not a case is fully prosecuted or discontinued. Prosecutors also make consequential sentence recommendations and shape case outcomes in other consequential ways.
This Report analyzes racial differences in Montgomery County Circuit Court cases from 2018-2022, working in close partnership with the MCSAO to leverage detailed administrative data to investigate potential inequities in the charging process tied to race and ethnicity. The current analysis provides a valuable, if incomplete, picture of how the race of the defendant impacts various decision points related to criminal punishment.
Our descriptive analysis of overall case processing patterns revealed several preliminary conclusions:
- Relative to their proportion in the county, Black defendants are overrepresented in Montgomery County Circuit Court – they account for more than half of all cases. This appears to be tied to higher arrests and may also reflect the demographic composition of surrounding areas.
- Black defendants are more likely to face charges for violent offenses involving murder, robbery, and firearms/weapons offenses. However, they are also underrepresented in other offenses such as rape and sexual crimes.
- Overall, descriptive summaries of case processing outcomes revealed few notable racial differences in charge-related outcomes. However, Black and Hispanic defendants are slightly more likely than White defendants to have their cases dismissed rather than convicted, they face a higher number of initial charges, tend to face more serious charges, and are more likely to receive charge reductions as part of the plea negotiation process. The result is that final case dispositions tend to be similar for defendants regardless of their race or ethnicity.
- Descriptive analysis of sentencing outcomes, however, reveals some notable differences in sentence type by race of defendant. Black and Hispanic defendants were more likely to receive incarceration sentences and received longer total and unsuspended incarceration terms relative to White defendants. It is also notable that Black defendants – and to a lesser extent Hispanic defendants – had more serious prior criminal histories, which could partially account for the observed racial discrepancies in sentencing outcomes.
In order to isolate the independent effect of defendant race on case outcomes, multivariate statistical models were estimated to account for racial differences on a variety of relevant case and defendant characteristics. These additional analyses support the following conclusions:
- Black and Hispanic defendants tend to have more total charges filed in their cases, and Black defendants face slightly more serious charges, on average, even after adjusting for other relevant case factors. However, there are no significant racial differences in the number or severity of charges at conviction. This suggests that the plea negotiation process largely equalizes any preexisting differences in initial charge characteristics.
- Hispanic defendants are slightly more likely to receive a reduction in the severity of their top charge as part of the plea negotiation process, particularly for sexual offenses, but racial differences in both the likelihood and magnitude of charge reductions are generally small and do not suggest large or systemic disparities by race and ethnicity.
- Black defendants are slightly more likely than White defendants to have their cases resolved through case dismissal rather than conviction. In addition, the probability of acquittal is statistically greater for Black and Hispanic defendants relative to White defendants, but the overall likelihood of a case ending in acquittal is low across all racial and ethnic groups.
- Similar to the descriptive results, our multivariate analysis uncovered few notable racial differences in criminal case processing outcomes. When differences were observed, they tended to be modest in size, and they often favored rather than disadvantaged defendants of color. One possible explanation for this could be that higher odds of charge reduction reflect prosecutorial corrections to initial overcharging on the part of police, who in Maryland are responsible for filing initial arrest charges; however, more complete data on police arrest and filing decisions would be needed to fully test that possibility.
- Finally, the one area where meaningful racial disparities did emerge was at sentencing. Even after controlling for relevant case characteristics, such as offense severity, prior record category, and minimum guidelines recommendation, Black and Hispanic defendants were significantly more likely than White defendants to receive active incarceration sentences. This could reflect a number of factors, including judicial discretion, custodial plea offers, differences in pretrial incarceration status, time served or suspended sentences, or other variables not included in the statistical model, such as socioeconomic status, victim characteristics, or broader neighborhood, family, or community factors. Future analysis is needed to fully explore possible reasons for racial differences in incarceration.
Overall, the general data patterns do not suggest overarching or systemic patterns of racial disparity in the prosecution of Montgomery County Court cases, but it does indicate defendants of color may be more likely to receive custodial sentences. Below we offer additional thoughts on how the Office can continue to use data to support its pursuit of fairness and transparency in prosecution.