Job Market Paper
Getting What You Pay For: How Payment Methods Affect Attorney Behavior
Abstract: How does the payment method affect attorney behavior and performance? I address
this question by taking advantage of a change in policy affecting how South Carolina pays private
attorneys who are handling public defense cases. Attorneys used to be an hourly rate (low-powered
incentives) and now are paid a flat fee per case (high-powered incentive). I measure how attorneys
respond to change both in terms of hours reported and case outcome. This is the first paper that
looks at how changing from an hourly rate to a flat fee affects case outcomes, measured as sentence
length and plea rates, along with other dimensions of attorney behavior. I find that attorneys
reduce the numbers of hours reported and some suggestive evidence that they are exerting less
effort. However, when I look at court outcomes, I find some evidence that sentence
lengths are shorter despite no change in plea rates.
Publications
The Educational Impact of Broadband Subsidies for Schools Under E-Rate (with T. Hazlett and S. Wallsten), Economics of Innovation and New Technology, forthcoming
More Bang for Your Buck: How to Improve the Incentive Structure for Indigent Defense Counsel, Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law vol. 14, no. 2 (Spring 2017): p. 553-578.
Working Paper
The Impact of State Firearm Laws on Firearm Deaths (with B. Harbolt)
Abstract: Over the past few decades, there have been large changes in many state's gun laws. Their effect on homicides, suicides, and overall rearm deaths is unclear. We make use of a new database of state gun law provisions from 1991 to 2016 to test the effectiveness of state gun control. There is a negative correlation between the number of gun control provisions and rearm death rates, but we find little evidence of a causal relationship. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we test the effectiveness of 13 broad provisions on state homicides and suicide rates. We find these provisions have little effect on reducing rearm homicides and suicides. Using rearm trace data, we find some evidence that states with fewer provisions have more rearms recovered in other states.
Forensic Laboratory Independence, Control, and Exonerations (with P. Warren
Abstract: The relationship between forensic laboratories and the other institutions of law enforcement varies widely over space and time in the United States. Some jurisdictions have their own local lab within the police or sheriff's department, others depend on a statewide lab system either independent or under the state police, and others still contract with a private lab to process their forensic evidence. These different organizational forms may shift the incentives lab technicians and managers have to provide timely and accurate analysis and testimony. We investigate the relationship between local police/sheriff control of the crime lab and the conviction of innocent defendants due, in part, to faulty or misleading forensic testimony. Counties with locally controlled labs have fewer exonerations in which faulty forensics were implicated in the original trial than similarly-situated counties without locally controlled labs.
This difference is robust to controlling for the rate of non-forensic exoneration, state fixed-effects, a variety of observable characteristics, and nearest-neighbor matching. The difference seems to be driven by control, per se, as matched counties containing state-controlled labs have significantly higher exoneration rates.