The results only partially support the research indicating direct sentencing disadvantages for minority defendants. These data indicate that while African-Americans and Hispanics who were subject to pretrial detention in Dade County were more likely to receive a period of incarceration as a sentence, African-Americans who were subjected to pretrial detention in Orange County were actually less likely to be sentenced to incarceration. Significant differences between the counties suggest that smaller-scale studies have the potential to uncover local and regional variations within State criminal justice systems that multi-state studies fail to capture. In an attempt to detect whether pretrial release remains a significant predictor of sentence type and length, this study analyzed a sample of felony filings in two Florida counties (Orange and Dade) during 1998. Two dependent variables were considered: type of sentence and the actual length of incarceration. The study was specifically interested in whether pretrial release had a differential impact on Hispanic and non-White defendants compared to Whites. Tables and references