Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-195) and index.
Contents:
Three case studies in political control -- Principal-agent theory, career prospects, and U.S Attorneys -- Describing the data and issue areas -- Political responsiveness and case filings -- Political responsiveness and sentence length -- Political responsiveness and career prospects -- Concluding thoughts and implications.
Summary:
"United States Attorneys (USAs), the chief federal prosecutors in each judicial district, are key in determining how the federal government uses coercive force against its citizens. How much control do national political actors exert over the prosecutorial decisions of USAs? This book investigates this question using a unique dataset of federal criminal prosecutions between 1986 and 2015 that captures both decisions by USAs to file cases as well as the sentences that result. Utilizing institutions from principal-agent theory, work on the career ambition of bureaucrats and politicians, and selected case-studies, the authors develop and advance a set of hypotheses about control by the President and Congress. Harnessing variation across time, federal judicial districts, and five legal issue areas - immigration, narcotics, terrorism, weapons, and white-collar crime - Miller and Curry find that USAs are subject to considerable executive influence in their decision making, supporting findings about the increase of presidential power over three decades. In addition, they show that the ability of the President to appoint USAs to higher-level positions within the executive branch or to federal judgeships is an important mechanism of that control. This investigation sheds light on how the need to be responsive to popularly-elected principals channels the enormous prosecutorial discretion of USAs"-- Jacket.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.