The Ultimate Legal Fiction: Knowing and Intelligent Guilty Pleas

Abstract

Guilty pleas dominate the resolution of criminal charges in the U.S. criminal justice system. In entering guilty pleas, the law is clear that defendants must do so knowingly and intelligently (and voluntarily) for the plea to be deemed valid. The belief that defendants who plead guilty generally understand and appreciate the process and consequences of ceding their rights is the ultimate legal fiction. This article first examines the possible ramifications of assuming the majority of defendants make valid plea decisions, as many courts do. Controversial plea practices are often sanctioned by courts precisely because of the presumption that defendants made knowing and voluntary decisions. The current mechanism of asking defendants yes-no questions via judicial plea colloquies is an ineffective measure of assessing defendant plea validity. New data demonstrates how the judicial colloquy is inadequate to determine defendants’ actual plea comprehension, revealing, for example, that a majority of defendants who just pleaded guilty could not fully define words like plea, right, and appeal. Relying on defendants’ self-reported claims of understanding and appreciation is insufficient to determine whether the plea was knowing and intelligent, particularly for younger and less educated defendants.