It identifies the major decisions these officials make daily and isolates some of the factors that affect these decisions. Prosecutors decide whether and how to proceed with cases based on their assessment of the evidence and the likelihood of a conviction under various charges. Whether and how to plea bargain is another discretionary decisionmaking arena for prosecutors. For judges discretion is exercised primarily in the sentencing decision. The author notes, however, that although prosecutors and judges have a considerable amount of autonomy in their decisionmaking, their discretion is not unbridled. Instead, it is structured in large measure by the types of cases before the court, by decisions made in earlier reviews of the cases, and by indirect community pressures. The author concludes that the court represents the operations of people who are concerned with more than simple processing of offenders and the achievement of justice and punishment for crime. Courtroom decisions occur in a political arena. Yet, blatant discrimination in sentencing has apparently decreased in American courtrooms. Extralegal factors do influence decisions, but they apparently do so in a subtler way, through reliance by decisionmakers on previous bureaucratic process outcomes and recommendations. Reforms in prosecutorial and judicial decisionmaking are likely to be unnecessary or unrealistic unless they are grounded in a clear understanding of how prosecutors and judges work. This chapter shows that researchers have only begun to provide that understanding.