全球智库信息集成服务系统

Law enforcement and the courts are afforded significant discretion in misdemeanor cases

• When Virginia officers pull over a motorist for speeding in the reckless range, they can either charge the motorist with a misdemeanor or downgrade the charge to an infraction. Officers in this sample downgraded the charge to an infraction 58 percent of the time.
• At the court stage, the court can convict the motorist of the misdemeanor charge, amend the charge downward (typically to an infraction), or dismiss the charge entirely. In this sample, the courts amended or dismissed these misdemeanor speeding charges 42 percent of the time.

Penalties for a misdemeanor conviction are significantly higher than penalties for an infraction

• A misdemeanor conviction results in a criminal record, higher fines and fees, and a worse driving record, all of which can have important impacts on an individual's life.

Black motorists were more likely to be convicted of a misdemeanor

• Among motorists cited for speeding in a range that qualified for a misdemeanor, 36 percent of Black motorists were convicted of a misdemeanor, compared with 19 percent of White motorists.
• Racial disparities were present at both the law enforcement and court stages of the process. Compared with White motorists, Black motorists both were more likely to be charged with a misdemeanor by law enforcement and, conditional on being charged, were more likely to be convicted by the courts.
• The county in which a motorist was cited explained almost half of the racial disparity in whom law enforcement charged with a misdemeanor.
• About four-fifths of the racial disparity in whom the court convicted of a misdemeanor could be explained by observable case characteristics, such as whether the motorist attended the court hearing and whether a defense attorney was present.

Virginia law states that any motorist pulled over for driving 20 miles per hour (mph) or more over the speed limit or driving in excess of 80 mph at any speed limit (or 85 mph as of July 2020) is eligible for a reckless driving citation, which is a Class 1 misdemeanor violation. However, both law enforcement officers and the courts can use discretion to reduce the misdemeanor charge to a simple traffic infraction. In this report, researchers use data on speeding violations in 18 Virginia counties over a nine-year period to examine whether there are racial disparities in who benefits from this discretion and why these racial disparities might exist.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  Data and Analysis Sample

• Chapter Three

  The Process for Charging and Adjudicating Reckless Speeding Violations

• Chapter Four

  The Impacts of Receiving a Misdemeanor Speeding Conviction

• Chapter Five

  Racial Disparities in Misdemeanor Convictions

• Chapter Six

  Conclusions and Policy Implications

• Appendix A

  Identifying Officers Who Did Not Discount Speeds When Issuing Citations

• Appendix B

  Disentangling Differences in Motorist Speed from Disparate Treatment at the Law Enforcement Stage

• Appendix C

  Additional Tables