On March 19, 2021, Professor Elayne E. Greenberg presented “When Public Defenders and Prosecutors Plea Bargain Race – A More Truthful Narrative” at the 44th Annual ONU Law Review Symposium “The Impact of Race on a Criminal Case.” 

Her talk refocused the criminal reform discussions about racial bias towards criminal justice defendants and explained how the biases about public defenders and prosecutors stymie reform efforts to end racialized plea bargaining. While some of the stereotypes about public defenders and prosecutors may have represented the status quo at an earlier time, these biases are frozen in time. They obscure a growing trend in which many public defenders and prosecutors are now actually criminal justice reform activists, incentivized to reform racialized criminal justice outcomes when plea bargaining race. In her talk, Professor Greenberg highlighted how the work of progressive prosecutors and lessons from emerging plea bargaining scholarship are encouraging public defenders and prosecutors to collaborate, consider a restorative justice approach in appropriate cases, and use a client-centered approach when they plea bargain race.