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

(based on data from “Does It Pay to Plead Guilty? Differential Sentencing and the Functioning of the Criminal Courts,” by Brereton and Casper, Law and Society Review, Vol. 16, No. 1). All of the subjects had prior prison sentences. Use a 0.05 significance level to 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?

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Guilty Plea Not Guilty Plea Sent to Prison 392 58 Not Sent to Prison 564 14