Plea colloquy

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A plea colloquy, in United States criminal procedure, is a conversation between a judge and a criminal defendant who has been sworn under oath, which must occur when the defendant enters a guilty plea in court in order for the plea to be valid. [1] The United States Supreme Court has crafted a doctrine which requires the court to engage in a specific line of inquiry. Because a guilty plea must be made intelligently, knowingly, and voluntarily, the court must advise the defendant of the following things:

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The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.

Criminal procedure is the adjudication process of the criminal law. While criminal procedure differs dramatically by jurisdiction, the process generally begins with a formal criminal charge with the person on trial either being free on bail or incarcerated, and results in the conviction or acquittal of the defendant. Criminal procedure can be either in form of inquisitorial or adversarial criminal procedure.

Judge official who presides over court proceedings

A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and, typically, in an open court. The judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers of the case, assesses the credibility and arguments of the parties, and then issues a ruling on the matter at hand based on his or her interpretation of the law and his or her own personal judgment. In some jurisdictions, the judge's powers may be shared with a jury. In inquisitorial systems of criminal investigation, a judge might also be an examining magistrate.

  1. The nature of the charge
  2. The potential penalties which might result from the plea, including any mandatory minimum sentence
  3. The defendant's rights to not plead guilty, and to request a jury trial.

The court must ask the defendant if he understands each of these points, and must receive a voluntary affirmative response. Many courts use a script of the questions which the judge will ask the defendant and the defense attorney in a specific order. Failure by the court to advise the defendant of any of the above points will supply the grounds for a collateral attack on the plea; if such an attack is successful, the guilty plea will be withdrawn, and the defendant will be given the opportunity to enter a new plea. The court can accept and bind the defendant to a guilty plea, even if the defendant insists that he is innocent, and merely taking the plea to avoid conviction by a jury.

Pursuant to the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a criminal defendant has the right to be represented by an attorney during a plea colloquy; failure of the state to provide an attorney to an indigent defendant during such proceedings is grounds for an appeal. It is possible - but very difficult - for a defendant who is so represented to have a plea thrown out due to ineffective assistance of counsel. The defendant must make a positive showing that but for the erroneous advice of counsel, he would not have chosen to plead guilty.

In United States law, ineffective assistance of counsel is a claim raised by a convicted criminal defendant asserting that the defendant's legal counsel performed so ineffectively that it deprived the defendant of the constitutional right guaranteed by the Assistance of Counsel Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Having the 'benefit of counsel' or 'assistance of counsel' means that the criminal defendant has had a competent attorney representing them. Competence is defined as reasonable professional assistance and is defined in part by prevailing professional norms and standards. To prove they received ineffective assistance, a criminal defendant must show two things:

  1. Deficient performance by counsel
  2. Resulting prejudice, in that but for the deficient performance, the result of the proceeding would have differed

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The plea bargain is any agreement in a criminal case between the prosecutor and defendant whereby the defendant agrees to plead guilty or nolo contendere to a particular charge in return for some concession from the prosecutor. This may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to a less serious charge, or to one of the several charges, in return for the dismissal of other charges; or it may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to the original criminal charge in return for a more lenient sentence.

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In law, a colloquy is a routine, highly formalized conversation. Conversations among the judge and lawyers are colloquys. The term may be applied to the conversation that takes place when a defendant enters into a plea bargain and the judge is supposed to verify that the defendant understands that he is waiving his right to a jury trial.

North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that there are no constitutional barriers in place to prevent a judge from accepting a guilty plea from a defendant who wants to plead guilty while still protesting his innocence under duress as a detainee status. This type of plea has become known as an Alford plea, differing slightly from the nolo contendere plea in which the defendant agrees to being sentenced for the crime, but does not admit guilt. Alford died in prison in 1975.

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), was a landmark Supreme Court case that established the standard for determining when a criminal defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel is violated by that counsel's inadequate performance.

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Plea bargaining in the United States is very common; the vast majority of criminal cases in the United States are settled by plea bargain rather than by a jury trial. They have also been increasing in frequency—they rose from 84% of federal cases in 1984 to 94% by 2001. Plea bargains are subject to the approval of the court, and different States and jurisdictions have different rules. Game theory has been used to analyze the plea bargaining decision.

Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742 (1970), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court refused to hold that large sentencing discounts and threats of the death penalty are sufficient evidence of coercion.

In criminal law, a factual basis is a statement of the facts detailing an individual crime and its particulars, stipulated to by the prosecution and the defense, which forms a basis by which a judge can accept a guilty plea from the defendant.

The Assistance of Counsel Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right...to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."

Lafler v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 156 (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court clarified the Sixth Amendment standard for reversing convictions due to ineffective assistance of counsel during plea bargaining. The Court ruled that when a lawyer's ineffective assistance leads to the rejection of a plea agreement, a defendant is entitled to relief if the outcome of the plea process would have been different with competent advice. In such cases, the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment requires the trial judge to exercise discretion to determine an appropriate remedy.

References

  1. ↑ "Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 11(b)". Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Cornell Law. 2010-04-20.
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