Highlighting data on how very few federal defendants go to trial (and even fewer who get acquitted)

The federal indictment of former Prez Trump seems sure to bring every more attention to the dynamics, and perhaps the day-to-day realities, of the federal criminal justice system.  To that end, John Gramlich of the Pew Research Center has this notable new item headlined “Fewer than 1% of defendants in federal criminal cases were acquitted in 2022.”  I recommend the full (short) piece, and here are excerpts:

Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty this week to federal criminal charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents after his departure from the White House in 2021.  The unprecedented charges against Trump and his subsequent plea raise the question: How common is it for defendants in federal criminal cases to plead not guilty, go to trial and ultimately be acquitted?

In fiscal year 2022, only 290 of 71,954 defendants in federal criminal cases – about 0.4% – went to trial and were acquitted, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the latest available statistics from the federal judiciary. Another 1,379 went to trial and were found guilty (1.9%).

The overwhelming majority of defendants in federal criminal cases that year did not go to trial at all.  About nine-in-ten (89.5%) pleaded guilty, while another 8.2% had their case dismissed at some point in the judicial process, according to the data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts….

Trump’s case is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, where acquittal rates look similar to the national average.  In fiscal 2022, only 12 of 1,944 total defendants in the Southern District of Florida – about 0.6% – were acquitted at trial. As was the case nationally, the vast majority of defendants in Florida’s Southern District (86.2%) pleaded guilty that year, while 10.7% had their cases dismissed.

It’s not clear from the federal judiciary’s statistics how many other defendants nationally or in the Southern District of Florida faced the same or similar charges that Trump is facing or how those cases ended.

Broadly speaking, however, the charges against Trump are rare. In fiscal 2022, more than eight-in-ten federal criminal defendants in the United States faced charges related to one of four other broad categories of crime: drug offenses (31%), immigration offenses (25%), firearms and explosives offenses (16%) or property offenses (11%).  In Florida’s Southern District, too, more than eight-in-ten defendants faced charges related to these four categories.