A new explanation for the failure of plea bargaining is provided. It is shown that a retention agent (i.e. median voter) can use convictions at trial as a signal of the quality of a prosecutor. This encourages a public prosecutor to take cases to trial even when both social welfare and her...

We examine how retention motives affect prosecutor behaviour under different evaluation criteria. In particular, we analyze how prosecutors of differing capabilities respond in choosing which cases to take to trail and which to plea bargain. We show how different criteria distort the mix of...