Is Sentence Independent of Plea? Many people believe that criminals who plead guilty tend to get lighter sentences than those who are convicted in trials. The accompanying table summarizes randomly selected sample data for San Francisco defendants in burglary cases. All of the subjects had prior prison sentences. At the 0.05 significance level, test the claim that the sentence (sent to prison or not sent to prison)

is independent of the plea. If you were an attorney defending a guilty defendant, would these results suggest that you should encourage a guilty plea?