Florida State University College of Law Scholarship Repository Scholarly Publications Summer 2007 Hyperbolic Criminals and Repeated Time-Inconsistent Misconduct Manuel A. Utset Florida State University College of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.law.fsu.edu/articles Part of the Criminal Law Commons, and the Law and Economics Commons Recommended Citation Manuel A. Utset, Hyperbolic Criminals and Repeated Time-Inconsistent Misconduct, 44 HOUS. L. REV. 609 (2007), Available at: https://ir.law.fsu.edu/articles/574 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scholarly Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. (3)UTSET.DOC 9/12/2007 4:15 PM ARTICLE HYPERBOLIC CRIMINALS AND REPEATED TIME-INCONSISTENT MISCONDUCT Manuel A. Utset* TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION .....................................................................611 II. THE NEOCLASSICAL THEORY OF CRIMINAL MISCONDUCT ....615 A. The Rational Choice Assumption .................................616 B. Choosing Socially Optimal Criminal Sanctions ..........617 C. Some Puzzles and Problems of the Neoclassical Approach .......................................................................619 1. The Puzzle of the Overdeterrence of Serial Offenders................................................................620 2. The Puzzle of Systematic Underdeterrence............622 3. The Overenforcement and Overdeterrence Puzzles ...................................................................625 III. AMODEL OF REPEATED TIME-INCONSISTENT MISCONDUCT ........................................................................626 A. Serial Misconduct and the Intertemporal Nature of Crime ............................................................627 1. Serial Misconduct and Future Well-Being............627 2. The Temporal Gap Between the Benefits and Costs of Crime........................................................629 3. Intertemporally Worthwhile Misconduct...............631 B. The Assumption that Long-Term Preferences Govern ...........................................................................632 * Charles W. Ehrhardt Professor, Florida State University College of Law. I would like to thank Robert Adler, Tony Anghie, Leslie Francis, Brian Galle, Erika George, Hillary Greene, Laura Kessler, Wayne Logan, Nancy McLaughlin, Daniel Medwed, Benjamin Priester, and Alice Ristroph. Special thanks to Denise Boineau. 609 (3)UTSET.DOC 9/12/2007 4:15 PM 610 HOUSTON LAW REVIEW [44:3 C. The Empirical Evidence Regarding Time- Inconsistent Preferences................................................633 D. Modeling Short-Run Impatience and Time- Inconsistency .................................................................638 E. Time-Inconsistent Misconduct ......................................642 F. Welfare Losses from Time-Inconsistent Misconduct.....645 G. Serial Time-Inconsistent Misconduct ...........................647 1. The Role of Incorrect Beliefs of Future Present-Bias...........................................................647 2. Entry Into and Exit from a Path of Serial Misconduct.............................................................649 3. Serial Time-Inconsistent Misconduct: A Numerical Example ...............................................652 H. Some Conclusions and Possible Objections ..................653 IV. LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF TIME-INCONSISTENT MISCONDUCT:THE PUZZLES OF NEOCLASSICAL THEORY REVISITED.............................................................................656 A. The Systematic Underdeterrence Puzzle and Hyperbolic Offenders.....................................................656 B. Well-Tailored Deterrence: Targeting Present-Bias of Offenders .......................................................................657 1. The Incentives Asymmetry: Increasing Delayed Sanctions versus Reducing the Immediate Benefits from Misconduct ......................................658 2. Reducing Immediate Benefits from Misconduct....659 3. Increasing Immediate Costs of Misconduct...........660 4. The Potential Costs of the Time-Inconsistent Approach................................................................661 C. The Market for Commitment Devices and the Value of Default Devices..........................................................662 D. The Puzzle of Lawmakers Spending “Too Much” on Enforcement Efforts ......................................................664 E. The Puzzle of Higher Sanctions for Repeat Offenders..664 F. Time-Inconsistent Obedience and the Puzzle of Overly Compliant Offenders .........................................665 V. OTHER CRIMINAL LAW IMPLICATIONS OF TIME- INCONSISTENT MISCONDUCT ................................................668 A. Entry and Exit in Conspiracies ....................................668 1. Immediate Costs and Delays in Forming Conspiracies...........................................................669 2. The Problem of Exit: Immediate Punishment and Group Cohesiveness........................................671 B. Present-Bias and the Entrapment Defense...................671 (3)UTSET.DOC 9/12/2007 4:15 PM 2007] HYPERBOLIC CRIMINALS 611 C. Domestic Violence and Time-Inconsistent Exits...........673 D. Obstacles to Time-Inconsistent Explanations of Criminal Misconduct ....................................................674 VI. CONCLUSION.........................................................................676 I. INTRODUCTION Judges and legal scholars have little tolerance for offenders who plea an excuse or ask for reductions in sentences using self- control arguments.1 There are exceptions: the delusional, who acts out of an “irresistible impulse,” may be found not guilty by reason of insanity; the jealous spouse, “reasonably” provoked to murder while “in the heat of passion,” may have the charge reduced to involuntary manslaughter.2 This general skepticism of “weakness of will” arguments is not shared by criminologists, who have produced a large empirical literature showing that low self-control3 is a principal predictor of criminal misconduct.4 1. See, e.g., Stephen J. Morse, Culpability and Control, 142 U. PA. L. REV. 1587, 1599–1602 (1994) (arguing against giving too much weight to claims of impulsivity and loss of control in context of criminal excuses); Richard A. Posner, Rational Choice, Behavioral Economics, and the Law, 50 STAN. L. REV. 1551, 1568 (1998) (arguing that the criminal justice system should not be designed on the “assumption that the population of potential criminals is dominated by hyperbolic discounters” with self-control problems); see also ARISTOTLE,NICOMACHEAN ETHICS bk.VII (350 B.C.E.), reprinted in 2 THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ARISTOTLE:THE REVISED OXFORD TRANSLATION 1729, 1818 (Jonathan Barnes ed., 2nd prtg. 1985) (1984) (drawing a distinction between the more morally reprehensible weak-willed incontinent, who “after deliberating fail, owing to their passion, to stand by the conclusions of their deliberation,” and the more morally forgivable impetuous incontinent—“keen and excitable people” who “because of the violence of their passions do not wait on reason”). 2. See Parsons v. State, 2 So. 854, 866–67 (Ala. 1887) (stating that an irresistible impulse requires that an offender has “lost the power to choose between the right and wrong, and to avoid doing the act in question, as that his free agency was at the time destroyed” (emphasis omitted)); see also MODEL PENAL CODE § 210.3(1)(b) (2001) (explaining that criminal homicide will be downgraded to manslaughter when it “is committed under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance for which there is reasonable explanation or excuse”). See generally Dan M. Kahan & Martha C. Nussbaum, Two Conceptions of Emotion in Criminal Law, 96 COLUM. L. REV. 269, 272–75 (1996) (discussing ways that emotions are treated in the criminal law); George Loewenstein, Out of Control: Visceral Influences on Behavior, 65 ORG.BEHAV.&HUM. DECISION PROCESSES 272, 272–73 (1996) (describing how hot psychological states can highjack a person’s ability to effectively deliberate and make rational choices). 3. As a general matter, “[s]elf-control problems arise from impulsive behavior” and occur when we “find ourselves making tempting choices against our own better judgment and self-interest.” Klaus Wertenbroch, Consumption Self-Control by Rationing Purchase Quantities of Virtue and Vice, 17 MARKETING SCI. 317, 318 (1998). 4. See MICHAEL R. GOTTFREDSON &TRAVIS HIRSCHI,AGENERAL THEORY OF CRIME 232 (1990) (arguing that self-control problems are, “for all intents and purposes, the individual-level cause of crime”); Travis C. Pratt & Francis T. Cullen, The Empirical (3)UTSET.DOC 9/12/2007 4:15 PM 612 HOUSTON LAW REVIEW [44:3 Criminologists posit that offenders with low self-control will often commit crimes while in the pursuit of “short-term, immediate pleasure,”5 ignoring the consequences of their actions on their future well-being.6 A growing empirical literature in economics suggests that people become increasingly impatient the closer that they get to an immediate payoff. Time-inconsistent preferences, or “hyperbolic discounting,”7 can lead people to experience “internal” intertemporal conflicts: they make repeated short-term decisions to yield to the transient lure of immediate gratification, notwithstanding their long-term preference to be patient.8 These hyperbolic