In light of the significant authority that prosecutors wield, we want them to be, at once, both accountable and independent. Obviously, these twin goals are structurally at odds with each other. "Electing prosecutors ensures that they are accountable, but it limits their independence. In contrast, appointing prosecutors increases independence, but it does so at the expense of accountability." In the U.S., 45/50 states elect local prosecutors "who bear the primary responsibility for bringing felony prosecutions in their jurisdictions." However, as Carissa Hessick (UNC) et al. note in a recent paper, Understanding Uncontested Prosecutor Elections: "[prosecutor] elections in the United States generally fail to capture the accountability benefits of elections because so many prosecutor elections are largely uncontested and uncompetitive."
Drawing partly on data gathered by the Prosecutors and Politics Project, the paper models "contested" prosecutor elections. In a slight break from prior findings from related literatures, this paper's core findings emphasize the salience of whether an incumbent is running and the jurisdiction's population. The paper's (excerpted) abstract follows.
"... Using a logistic regression analysis, this Article estimates the individual effects of a number of variables on prosecutor elections. It finds that several factors that have been previously identified as contributing to uncontested election are not, in fact, what drives uncontested elections for prosecutors. Instead, the factors with the largest effect are whether an incumbent runs and the population of the district. It also identifies two features of state election law that contribute to the dearth of contested elections. The Article concludes by noting that these factors suggest specific policy changes that could help to increase the number of contested and competitive elections—thus ensuring that voters can help guide important criminal justice decisions in their communities."
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