I was viewing a televised case, the Judge asks the defendant “have any threats or promises been made to you to deliver this plea” before the defendant delivers their guilty plea as part of a plea bargain. I was wondering, how is a plea bargain/plea agreement exempt from being considered a “promise” as the judge words it?
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1I think the gist is that of "why would a plea deal not be considered coercion", as a plea deal logically appears to be. We are all aware of the reasons for plea deals, but they are questionably immoral. In the UK, there are no such provisions, and the morally ambiguous addendum "(other than promises in a plea agreement)" should emphasise the clear compromise between justice and cost(s) and the agendas served. – dan Nov 21 '22 at 04:06
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I think it's implied that it's referring to any agreements with any parties that are not the state. Plea deals are about saving resources and making future arrests, a state interest. – Nov 21 '22 at 16:38
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The plea bargain doesn't necessarily have to contain any specific side conditions. Every other episode of Law and Order seemed to involve someone being charged with first-degree murder being provided the option of pleading guilty to second-degree murder. The "promise" was simply that they would receive the relatively milder sentence mandated for a second-degree murder conviction, rather than risk being found guilty of first-degree murder and receiving a harsher sentence. But that's all explicit in the fact that the plea being entered was for a charge of second-, not first-, degree murder. – chepner Nov 21 '22 at 16:40
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@chepner: If someone were accused of first degree murder, but asked to plead guity to e.g. reckless operation of industrial equipment, would anything preclude the state from accepting that plea but then still prosecuting the person for first degree murder on the basis that even if the person decided to confess to some other action involving careless use of the industrial equipment, that is a separate crime from the murder of which they still stand accused? – supercat Nov 21 '22 at 18:36
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AFAIK, the plea bargain has to be submitted as a replacement for the original charges, not just something new the state pulls out of thin air. – chepner Nov 21 '22 at 18:42
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Plus, I don't think a defendant can plead guilty to a lesser offense to prevent the prosecution from pursuing a different charge. They can ask the prosecution to allow them to plead guilty to a lesser charge, but it's still something the prosecution must agree to and initiate. – chepner Nov 21 '22 at 18:43
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This is, a defendant can't say "I'll plead guilty to X if you drop Y" and hope that Y actually gets dropped. The defendant can say "If you charge me with X instead of Y, I'll plead guilty to X." – chepner Nov 21 '22 at 18:45
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@supercat Jeopardy "attaches" when the plea agreement is accepted by the defendant and the court, so prosecuting them for the original offense anyway would be a 5th amendment violation. It doesn't have to be the exact same offense, you're protected from similar charges if they use the same set of facts. See Blockburger for details and examples. – bta Nov 21 '22 at 20:53
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@bta: The question of whether two actions constitute "the same set of facts" can sometimes be a bit vague. For example, if after Bob is prosecuted and sentenced for entering a building at a certain time to steal some property, the body of some vagrant Jue is discovered with Bob's knife in the back, I don't think Bob could argue that because he killed Joe during the theft for which he had already been prosecuted, double-jeopardy rules would preclude charging him with Joe's murder. On the flip side, if the state had known of Joe's death from the get-go, but evidence linking it... – supercat Nov 21 '22 at 21:14
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...to either Bob or the theft was nowhere near as strong as evidence linking Bob to the theft, and if Bob is willing to admit to the theft, and admit to having dropped his knife, but denies being aware of Joe's presence, accepting a guilty plea for the theft and then using the Bob's admission that he was present on the scene as evidence in a murder prosecution would seem improper. – supercat Nov 21 '22 at 21:21
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@supercat There are multiple court precedents refining that concept over the years, and it can indeed get complicated. Generally speaking, no counsel would let their client accept a plea bargain unless they knew jeopardy was sufficiently attached (your example of pleading down from murder to theft is unreasonable). Many plea bargains are also agreed to in writing like a contract, so a court can enforce the terms against a rogue prosecutor and bar prosecution. – bta Nov 21 '22 at 21:35
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@bta: Without getting bogged down in details of a hypothetical, I'd think such a plea bargain might be reasonably acceptable to prosecutor and defense alike if there were strong evidence to suggest that Joe's death occurred around the time of the theft, and tenuous evidence that Joe had sufficient involvement to justify a felony murder charge, but no evidence suggesting that Bob intentionally killed Joe. For purposes of discussion, though, my point was a distinction between prosecuting Bob for a simple theft, versus for a theft in which someone died without the defendant's claimed involvement. – supercat Nov 21 '22 at 21:57
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This is covered by Rules of Federal Criminal Procedure Rule 11, which says that
Before accepting a plea of guilty or nolo contendere, the court must address the defendant personally in open court and determine that the plea is voluntary and did not result from force, threats, or promises (other than promises in a plea agreement).
The judge is not required to include a disclaimer (like "other than the plea deal itself") in interviewing the defendant. By asking the question in an unqualified way, the judge will decide whether there were promises made that are outside the scope of the plea bargain.
user6726
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So when there in fact is a plea bargain, is the defendant expected to respond to the unqualified query with a description of the deal? – John Bollinger Nov 21 '22 at 15:44
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2The judge expects the defendant to answer truthfully. The judge has a different relationship to the defendant that the prosecutor, who can cut the defendant off in mid sentence. The judge's remit is to determine whether there has been improper influence. If you add a link to the video of the interaction, we could comment on their interpersonal interactions., but I suspect only OP know where that link is. – user6726 Nov 21 '22 at 16:08
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2@JohnBollinger The plea bargain has to be entered on the record, so somebody (the judge or prosecutor) would have orally described it earlier. A typical exchange might be: Prosecutor: "The People offer a plea deal to disturbing the peace instead of assault and battery"... Judge: "Do you accept this plea offer?" Defendant: "Yes" Judge: "Other than this offer, have any threats or promises been made to you in exchange for your guilty plea?" Defendant: "No." If the judge didn't qualify the question, the defendant could respond: "No, just the plea offer" – user71659 Nov 21 '22 at 23:27
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Because in the United States, the legal system is designed to handicap the government in criminal trials. Plea Deals happen because it is supposed to be in the best interest of both sides to handle it out of court, but that best interest tends to favor the government's position more than the defendant's position. Specifically, a trial costs money and prosecutors do not have a budget to litigate every crime that crosses their desk (especially at the state level, which is where the bulk of the crimes in the U.S. are handled). The plea bargain is a quid pro quo in that, if the defendant agrees to certain terms, the prosecutor will go easy on them and given them reduced sentences and charge them for lesser crimes than what they were busted for (Almost everyone who does jail time for drug possession charges plead down from "Possession with intent to sell" charges... there are bigger fish to fry than putting a college kid who has a single dime bag he intends for personal use in jail for years after all.).
Because the plea deal is a net win for the prosecutor (a criminal is punished and they save money doing it) they would prefer to have plea deals over going to trial in all cases... which means they would be motivated to corruptly influence the defendant to enter the plea deal.
Even if a deal is made, the judge has to accept it for it to be enforced. Thus, if he suspects the deal was not made in good faith or if one party entered into the deal for reasons other than their own free will, they can not accept the deal. And since plea deals are written and offered by the prosecutor, they are going to be the source of any dirty tricks.
All that said, the question is fairly standard. A judge will ask the defendant the same question no matter what plea he/she enters. It's just not as likely that someone was forced to plea "Not Guilty" against their will.
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As with Dan's comment, I don't think this addresses the question. Incidentally, plea deals also occasionally show up because the government isn't sure if they can win the case, and yeah, sometimes there is an implicit threat of "We may not be able to win, but we will smear your name by publicizing that you're on trial for kitty sex crimes, so just take the plea deal". – SCD Nov 21 '22 at 15:26
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I think this is a good addendum to the currently top-voted answer, but you would have to read between the lines to get the actual answer out of this part. – Grault Nov 21 '22 at 15:43
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@SCD Typically, in that situation, the prosecutor might not be able to win on a charge, but can win on a lesser and included charges (Of course, them not showing this is their reasoning is fine, and just because they are considering the higher charge doesn't mean they can't drop the initial high charge to begin with and prosecute the charge they tried to get the defendant to agree too (and go for higher sentencing). – hszmv Nov 21 '22 at 16:41
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@SCD And while the media threat isn't solid (most crimes aren't going to get media attention anyway) in some cases, they may charge a misdemeanor crime instead of a felony, which will affect certain reporting requirements (I.e. Where it is allowed, most job applications ask if you've been convicted of only felonies and do not care about misdemeanor charges.). – hszmv Nov 21 '22 at 16:44
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@hszmv: My use of the "kitty sex crimes" was a slightly veiled reference to how it's been used in PA. We had a recent scandal involving people who plea bargained for sex offense charges with minors where the state had to 'fess up to that they'd gotten pleas by claiming that it would keep the charge private, whereupon the people who plea bargained got put on the sex offense registry and had no avenue for appeal since there was never a trial. – SCD Nov 21 '22 at 16:50
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@SCD: Doesn't matter what the scandal was referring to... and when referring to something that is local please explain the term. Not everyone on the world wide web lives exclusively in PA, you know (I live in a neighboring state and this is the first time I've heard the matter). – hszmv Nov 21 '22 at 16:54
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@Andy I didn't use the term. I assume it was always kiddy... the accent in the area makes it the words "Kiddy" and "Kitty" sound similar enough. – hszmv Nov 21 '22 at 19:04
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This is somewhat of a whitewash of what is really going on and doesn't explain why >95% of US federal cases are resolved by plea bargain instead of going to trial. The truth is closer to that federal prosecutors have many very large knobbed sticks to beat you with and lots of money to spend on people willing to beat you with them. If you don't plea out you will certainly get charged with as many offenses as they can dig up and creatively assign to you. Your trial will go badly be because you have limited funds and they have infinite $$$$. You will go to prison for a long time. 1/2 – davidbak Nov 21 '22 at 22:52
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Therefore, many many people plea out because they don't want to risk the near certainty of much longer prison terms than otherwise. Prosecutors do it because they get promoted - into politics! - for high case resolution rates in their favor. It's very highly skewed against defendents. "The legal system is designed to handicap the government in criminal trials" - on paper! In theory! Nice stories to tell you legal immigrants/citizen candidates/sweet little gradeschoolers. In practice: it isn't so. (It will go badly for you if you tell the judge the truth about why you accepted.) 2/2 – davidbak Nov 21 '22 at 22:55