Guilty Pleas, Plea Bargaining, Sentencing, and Punishment

Advisements Given to the Defendant

The judge must determine whether a guilty plea is voluntary and intelligent. This must be done by addressing the defendant personally in open court on the record. The judge must be sure the defendant understands things such as: (1) the nature of the charge to which the plea is offered and the crucial elements of the crime charged; (2) the maximum possible penalty and mandatory minimum; and (3) that the defendant has a right not to plead guilty, and if they do plead guilty they have waived the right to trial

Attorney Informing Defendant of Plea

The judge need not personally explain EVERY element of each charge so long as the record reflects that the nature of the charge and the elements of the crime were explained to the defendant by their own counsel

Remedy for Insufficient Advisements

Withdrawal of the guilty plea and pleading anew

Collateral Attacks on Guilty Pleas After Sentencing

Pleas that are seen as an intelligent choice among a defendant’s alternatives are immune from collateral attack but can be set aside for: (1) involuntariness; (2) lack of jurisdiction; (3) IAC; or (4) failure to keep the plea bargain

Plea bargaining

A judge does not have to accept a guilty plea. A guilty plea is not involuntary merely because it was entered in response to the prosecution’s threat to charge the defendant with a more serious crime if they did not plead guilty. There is no prosecutorial vindictiveness in charging a more serious offense when the defendant demands a jury trial

Collateral Effects of Guilty Pleas:

A guilty plea conviction may be used as a conviction in other proceedings when relevant, such as sentence enhancements. However, a guilty plea neither admits the legality of the incriminating evidence nor waives 4A claims in a subsequent civil damages action

Procedural Rights during Sentencing

A defendant has the right to counsel during sentencing. Sentencing may be based on hearsay and uncross-examined reports (no right to confrontation or cross-examination.) However, if a magnified sentence is based on a statute that requires new findings of fact, those facts must be found in a context that grants a right to confrontation and cross-examination

Capital Sentencing Procedural Rights

A defendant in a death penalty case must have more opportunity for confrontation than need be given to a defendant in other sentencing proceedings

Resentencing after Appeal and Reconviction

If a greater punishment is imposed on a defendant who has been reconvicted after a successful appeal, the judge must set forth in the record the reasons for the harsher sentence, except if: (1) the greater sentence was imposed upon a de novo trial; or (2) the greater sentence was imposed in a state that uses jury sentencing, unless the second jury was told of the first jury’s sentence

Death Penalty: Case Comparisons

State appellate courts do not have to compare the death sentence imposed in a case under appeal with other penalties imposed in similar cases

Death Penalty for murder

The death penalty can only be imposed under a statutory scheme that gives the jury reasonable discretion, full information concerning defendants, and guidance in making the decision. The statute cannot be vague and must allow consideration of all mitigating evidence

Death Penalty based on Prior convictions

If the death penalty is partly based on the aggravating factor of the defendant’s prior conviction, the sentence must be reversed if a prior conviction is invalidated

Standard of Review of Death Sentences

A death sentence that has been affected by a vague or otherwise unconstitutional factor can still be upheld only if all aggravating and mitigating factors involved are reweighed and death is still found to be appropriate

Death Penalty for rape or felony murder

8A prohibits imposition of the death penalty for the crime of raping an adult woman or child if the rape was neither intended to result in nor did result in death. The same logic precludes a death sentence for a felony murder unless the murderer’s participation was major and they acted with reckless indifference to the value of human life

Death Penalty and Sanity

The Death penalty prohibits executing a prisoner who is insane at the time of the execution, even if the prisoner was sane at the time the crime was committed

Intellectual Disability and the Death Penalty

8A prohibits imposition of the death penalty on people who are intellectually disabled

Death Penalty and Inability to Recall the Crime

8A does not forbid the execution of a person with a mental disorder that leaves them without any memory of committing the crime, so long as they can still form a rational understanding of the reason for the death sentence

Death Penalty for Minors

8A prohibits the imposition of the death penalty on defendants who were less than 18 years of age at the time they committed the offense

Lethal Injection and 8A

The possibility that an injection might be administered improperly does not make the procedure cruel and unusual. It is only cruel and unusual if the condemned can prove there is a serious risk of inflicting unnecessary pain or that an alternative procedure is feasible, may be readily implemented, and in fact significantly reduces substantial risk of severe pain

Status Crimes

A statute that criminalizes a “status” violates 8A. However, it is permissible to criminalize specific activity related to a status such as driving while intoxicated

LWOP for Minors

8A prohibits the imposition of LWOP for a minor who committed a non-homicide crime. It also prohibits mandatory imposition of LWOP for homicide crimes, but allows discretionary LWOP sentences

Sentencing Considering Perjury

In determining the sentence, a trial judge may consider the defendant’s perjury while testifying on their own behalf

Imprisonment of Indigents for Nonpayment

Where aggregate imprisonment exceeds the maximum period fixed by statutes and results directly from involuntary nonpayment of a fine or court costs, there has been a violation of the Equal Protection Clause