Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

A criminal defendant may elect to plead guilty instead of requiring that the prosecution prove him guilty. Often, a defendant who pleads guilty does so as part of a “plea bargain” with the prosecution, where the defendant is guaranteed a lighter sentence or is allowed to plead guilty to a lesser offense.1 The Supreme Court has held that the government may not structure its system to coerce a guilty plea.2 However, the Court has upheld guilty pleas that are entered voluntarily, knowingly, and understandingly, even if the defendant pled guilty to obtain an advantage.3

The guilty plea and the often concomitant plea bargain are important components of the criminal justice system,4 and it is permissible for a prosecutor negotiating a plea bargain to require a defendant to forgo his right to a trial in return for escaping additional charges that are likely upon conviction to result in a more severe penalty.5 A defendant who pleads guilty gives up the right to challenge most aspects of the proceeding against him. However, some constitutional challenges may survive a plea if they go to “'the very power of the State’ to prosecute the defendant.” 6 Moreover, a prosecutor denies due process if he penalizes the assertion of a right or privilege by the defendant by charging more severely or recommending a longer sentence.7

In accepting a guilty plea, a court must inquire whether the defendant is pleading voluntarily, knowingly, and understandingly.8 The Court has also held that “the adjudicative element” inherent in accepting a guilty plea must include safeguards “to insure the defendant what is reasonably due in the circumstances. Those circumstances will vary, but a constant factor is that, when a plea rests in any significant degree on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it can be said to be part of the inducement or consideration, such promise must be fulfilled.” 9

Footnotes

1

There are a number of other reasons why a defendant may be willing to plead guilty. For instance, there may be overwhelming evidence against him.

2

United States v. Jackson, 390 U.S. 570 (1968). Release-dismissal agreements, pursuant to which the prosecution agrees to dismiss criminal charges in exchange for the defendant’s agreement to release his right to file a civil action for alleged police or prosecutorial misconduct, are not per se invalid. Town of Newton v. Rumery, 480 U.S. 386, 394 (1987).

3

See Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 265–66 (1973); North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 38 (1970); Parker v. North Carolina, 397 U.S. 790, 795 (1970); McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 771 (1970); Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 758 (1970).

4

Blackledge v. Allison, 431 U.S. 63, 71 (1977).

5

Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357 (1978); see also United States v. Goodwin, 457 U.S. 368 (1982) (after defendant was charged with a misdemeanor, refused to plead guilty and sought a jury trial in district court, the government obtained a four-count felony indictment and conviction).

6

Class v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 798, 809 (2018) (quoting Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21, 30 (1974)) (holding guilty plea did not bar defendant from challenging the constitutionality of the statute of conviction on direct appeal). See also Menna v. New York, 423 U.S. 61, 62 n.2 (1975) (per curiam) (holding guilty plea did not waive defendant’s claim on direct appeal that double jeopardy prohibited his prosecution); Blackledge, 417 U.S. at 31. (holding guilty plea did not foreclose defendant in habeas challenge from arguing that due process prohibited his prosecution). The state can permit pleas of guilty in which the defendant reserves the right to raise constitutional questions on appeal, and federal habeas courts will honor that arrangement. Lefkowitz v. Newsome, 420 U.S. 283, 293 (1975).

7

Blackledge, 417 U.S. at 21. The defendant in Blackledge was convicted in an inferior court of a misdemeanor. He had a right to a de novo trial in superior court, but when he exercised the right the prosecutor obtained a felony indictment based upon the same conduct. The distinction the Court drew between this case and Bordenkircher and Goodwin is that of pretrial conduct, in which vindictiveness is not likely, and post-trial conduct, in which vindictiveness is more likely and is not permitted. Accord, Thigpen v. Roberts, 468 U.S. 27 (1984). The distinction appears to represent very fine line drawing, but it appears to be one the Court is committed to.

8

Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 (1969). In Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U.S. 637 (1976), the Court held that a defendant charged with first degree murder who elected to plead guilty to second degree murder had not voluntarily, in the constitutional sense, entered the plea because neither his counsel nor the trial judge had informed him that an intent to cause the death of the victim was an essential element of guilt in the second degree; consequently no showing was made that he knowingly was admitting such intent. The Court stated: “A plea may be involuntary either because the accused does not understand the nature of the constitutional protections that he is waiving . . . or because he has such an incomplete understanding of the charge that his plea cannot stand as an intelligent admission of guilt.” Id. at 645 n.13. However, this does not mean that a court accepting a guilty plea must explain all the elements of a crime, as it may rely on counsel’s representations to the defendant. Bradshaw v. Stumpf, 545 U.S. 175 (2005) (where defendant maintained that shooting was done by someone else, guilty plea to aggravated manslaughter was still valid, as such charge did not require defendant to be the shooter). See also Blackledge v. Allison, 431 U.S. 63 (1977) (defendant may collaterally challenge guilty plea where defendant had been told not to allude to existence of a plea bargain in court, and such plea bargain was not honored).

9

Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 262 (1971). Defendant and a prosecutor reached agreement on a guilty plea in return for no sentence recommendation by the prosecution. At the sentencing hearing months later, a different prosecutor recommended the maximum sentence, and that sentence was imposed. The Court vacated the judgment, holding that the prosecutor’s entire staff was bound by the promise. Prior to the plea, however, the prosecutor may withdraw his first offer, and a defendant who later pled guilty after accepting a second, less attractive offer has no right to enforcement of the first agreement. Mabry v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 504 (1984).