Professor Richman applauds Professor Wright for attempting to determine whether “the inexorable reduction in trials actually reflects an impairment of the federal criminal system’s truth-finding function.” However, he notes that Professor Wright overlooked one important factor in his analysis: the extent to which “the vanishing acquittal rate reflects an increase in the [federal] adoption of well-established ‘local’ cases.” Without more information, Professor Richman concludes, “aggregrate caseload statistics are . . . hard to interpret.”
Volume 156 2007 Response