In some criminal cases, the judge and the defendant’s lawyer will enter into a plea bargain, where the accused pleads guilty to a lesser charge. The proportion of time this happens is called the mitigation rate. A Florida Corrections Department study showed that Escambia County had the state’s fourth highest rate, 61.7% (1033 out of 1675 cases). Concerned that the guilty were not getting appropriate sentences, the state attorney put in new policies to limit the number of plea bargains. A follow up study (133) showed that the mitigation rate dropped to 52.1% (344 out of 660 cases). Is it fair to conclude that the drop was due to the new policies, or can the decline be written off to chance? Test at the α = 0.01 level.