A divided Supreme Court ruled for the first time Wednesday that the guarantee of effective legal representation applies to plea bargain agreements, significantly expanding the constitutional rights of defendants as they move through the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n
In a pair of cases decided by 5 to 4 votes, the court opened a new avenue for defendants to challenge their sentences on grounds that their attorneys gave them faulty advice, lawyers on both sides of the issue said. The vast majority of criminal cases end with a guilty plea rather than a trial, and the ruling could affect thousands of cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is that plea bargains have become so central to the administration of the criminal justice system that defense counsel have responsibilities . . . that must be met to render the adequate assistance of counsel that the Sixth Amendment requires,\u201d Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote. He was joined by the court\u2019s liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.<\/p>\n
\nThat is the case, the majority said, even if the defendant is unquestionably guilty or has received a fair trial after turning down a plea bargain.\n
Since more than nine in 10 cases involve a plea rather than trial, the decision will mean greater constitutional scrutiny of the negotiations central to almost every prosecution.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems to me the court has created a new body of constitutional law,\u201d said Connecticut Assistant State\u2019s Attorney Michael J. Proto, who wrote a brief for 27 states urging the court not to extend the constitutional guarantee to plea bargains. \u201cThere are a lot of unanswered questions, and it is going to spawn a lot of litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Margaret Colgate Love, who helped write an American Bar Association brief that advocated for the court\u2019s action, agreed about its impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat makes these cases so important is the Supreme Court\u2019s full-on recognition of the centrality of plea bargaining in the modern criminal justice system and its extension of constitutional discipline to the outcome of the plea process,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The decisions prompted a scathing rebuttal from Justice Antonin Scalia, delivered from the bench to signal his displeasure.<\/p>\n
Scalia called the rulings \u201cabsurd\u201d and said the majority had twisted the constitutional right to ensure defendants get a fair trial into one in which they have a chance \u201cto escape a fair trial and get less punishment than they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added in a written dissent, \u201cToday, however, the Supreme Court of the United States elevates plea bargaining from a necessary evil to a constitutional entitlement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court\u2019s conservatives \u2014 Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. \u2014 voted with Scalia.<\/p>\n
The court was considering two cases in which all parties agreed that the lawyers involved had failed their clients.<\/p>\n
In one, Galin Edward Frye\u2019s attorney never told him of plea bargain offers from Missouri prosecutors on charges that he was driving with a revoked license. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison. Prosecutors had offered Frye a couple of deals, one of which would have required 10 days in jail.<\/p>\n
In the other, Anthony Cooper was charged under Michigan law with assault with intent to murder and other charges after shooting Kali Mundy in the buttock, hip and abdomen. She survived the attack.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors offered Cooper a deal of 51 to 85 months in prison in exchange for a guilty plea. Cooper turned down that and other offers, allegedly because his attorney told him he could not be found guilty of the attempted murder charge, because he had shot Mundy below the waist.<\/p>\n
Cooper went to trial, was convicted and was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison.<\/p>\n
In the Frye case, the majority held that \u201cwhen defense counsel allowed the offer to expire without advising the defendant or allowing him to consider it, defense counsel did not render the effective assistance the Constitution requires.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Cooper\u2019s case, the court said the \u201cdefendant who goes to trial instead of taking a more favorable plea\u201d may be harmed by receiving \u201ceither a conviction on more serious counts or the imposition of a more severe sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n
The majority rejected the view of Scalia, the states and the Obama administration that any ineffective advice from Cooper\u2019s attorney was remedied by what Scalia called \u201cthe gold standard of American justice \u2014 a full-dress jury trial before 12 men and women tried and true.\u201d<\/p>\n
That view, wrote Kennedy, \u201cignores the reality that criminal justice today is for the most part a system of pleas, not a system of trials.\u201d<\/p>\n
On one level, this ruling would seem to protect the guilty by opening up litigation possibilities that could a lot of imprisoned criminals free.\u00a0 But I think it could also harm defendants who are accused but are innocent.<\/p>\n
If we aren\u2019t going to have trials, I suppose the alternative needs to be brought under constitutional principles, but aren\u2019t we supposed to have trials, which have all of the rigorous rules of evidence and formalized protection of the defendants\u2019 rights?\u00a0 In plea bargains, defendants are manipulated to plead guilty for the price of a lesser sentence.\u00a0 But what if they aren\u2019t guilty?\u00a0 Justice Kennedy\u2019s statement, above, is chilling.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<\/blockquote><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Supreme Court\u00a0 just rocked our criminal justice system: A divided Supreme Court ruled for the first time Wednesday that the guarantee of effective legal representation applies to plea bargain agreements, significantly expanding the constitutional rights of defendants as they move through the criminal justice system. In a pair of cases decided by 5 to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[568,601,2139],"class_list":["post-11198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law","tag-constitutional-law","tag-criminal-justice-system","tag-supreme-court"],"yoast_head":"\n
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