SMU SOE Seminar Series (October 16, 2026): Sentencing Floors and Bargaining Leverage: Evidence from Mandatory Minimum Repeal

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ABSTRACT

Sentencing laws do not only determine punishment after conviction, they also shape the outside options that structure plea negotiations before conviction. We study this bargaining channel using detailed administrative court records from Arkansas, where a 2011 reform eliminated mandatory minimum penalties for drug manufacture and sale offenses. Using the timing of this reform, we estimate reductions in charge severity, prison sentence length, and incarceration, without increasing subsequent criminal justice involvement. We then examine how prosecutors adapted after losing this statutory source of bargaining leverage. Before repeal, mandatory minimum charges were selectively filed and often dropped while other charges on the same case resolved guilty, consistent with their use as bargaining tools. We find little evidence that prosecutors replaced mandatory-minimum leverage through charge stacking, increased charge dropping, shorter average prison sentences, or differential movement into trial. Instead, our within-case estimates show that following repeal, manufacture-type charges became more likely than co-charges on the same case to resolve guilty and less likely to be dropped; conditional on conviction, sentencing shifted away from prison and toward probation. Thus, repeal reduced punishment without reducing overall guilty outcomes, instead changing which charges became the basis for conviction and how those convictions were punished.