Professor’s work on false guilty pleas transforms national conversation on criminal justice
Belmont Professor of Law and Director of Criminal Justice Studies Lucian Dervan accepted the Charles R. English-Neal Sonnett Award from the Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association, March 7.
Dervan was among five criminal justice reform advocates who received awards honoring their efforts to end systemic injustice in the criminal system.
The English-Sonnett Award recognizes judges, prosecutors, the defense bar, academics and other members of the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section who have distinguished themselves by their work in the criminal justice field.
“My years of involvement with the ABA's Criminal Justice Section have been invaluable to my work and passion in this field,” Dervan said. “To now be recognized for my contributions to the criminal justice community is very special, and I'm honored that they've selected me for this award this year.”
The award was renamed the English-Sonnett Award in 2024 to honor the late Neal Sonnett, an attorney who committed multiple decades of service to the Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association along with the award’s original namesake Charles R. English.
“I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing Charles English, but Neil Sonnet was a dear friend,” Dervan shared. “It makes it even more special that I'm going to be the first recipient of the award that now carries his name after his passing.”
Dervan currently serves as chair of the ABA Global White Collar Crime Institute, which he founded in 2012. His additional involvement and leadership include previously serving on the ABA Board of Governors (2020-2023), as chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section (2018-2019) and the ABA Commission on the American Jury (2019-2020).
While serving as chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section, he created a task force to examine the role of plea bargaining in the criminal justice system, then went on to co-chair the task force from 2019-2023.
In February 2023, the task force released its report, which contained 14 Principles to provide a path forward to a fairer and more transparent system. In August 2023, the Principles were adopted as official policy of the American Bar Association.
An Honest Plea: How Dervan is Reforming Plea Bargaining Practice
Dervan’s research has directly led to significant reform in plea bargaining practices. As founding director of the Plea Bargaining Institute (PBI), he established what has become the global intellectual home for academics, policymakers, advocacy organizations and practitioners working in the plea bargaining space.
His interest in plea bargaining stemmed from his work in white collar crime research.
While investigating sentencing trends after legislative changes following the Enron scandal, he discovered that plea bargaining played a crucial role in maintaining sentencing patterns despite harsher statutory penalties. This realization led him to examine plea bargaining’s history, development and effects — particularly on innocent individuals who plead guilty to avoid harsher sentences.
“95 to 98% of convictions in the United States come from pleas of guilty rather than trials,” he shared. “That led me to the question of, is there an innocence problem with plea bargaining?’”
His psychological deception study in the early 2010s demonstrated that a significant percentage of individuals — 56% in his study — would falsely admit to actions that never happened to obtain the benefits of a plea deal. This research was pivotal in shifting legal discourse, proving that false guilty pleas were a systemic issue, not just isolated incidents.
The growing acknowledgment that innocent people do plead guilty under the pressures of plea bargaining has been a significant shift in the last 15 years. Once dismissed as a rare occurrence, it is now widely recognized as a critical issue in the criminal justice system.
“I remember being on a national radio program when I started doing this research with somebody who essentially said that people falsely pleading guilty doesn't happen,” Dervan recalled. “Today, it is understood and accepted that false pleas of guilty by the innocent is a part of our criminal justice system, and the system must be reformed to prevent these false pleas from happening.”
PBI fulfills its mission by maintaining a comprehensive, searchable database of research summaries that bridges the gap between academic findings and practical applications. This resource ensures stakeholders across the justice system can access vital research to make evidence-based decisions.
Beyond information sharing, PBI actively fosters collaboration on research initiatives between researchers, policymakers and practitioners, helping shape studies that address urgent challenges within the legal system. At Belmont Law, Dervan’s work is supported by student research assistants who help gather academic findings for PBI’s database. Their work ensures that crucial insights reach those positioned to implement meaningful reform.