Ineffective Assistance of Counsel Applies To Plea Bargain

May 11, 2012 (Press-News.org) The recent Supreme Court decision in Lafler v. Cooper addresses the degree to which the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of effective assistance of counsel during a criminal case applies to the plea negotiation process.

In Lafler, the defendant received a plea offer from the prosecutor. He rejected the plea on advice of counsel, stood trial, was convicted and sentenced. His sentence was more severe than the plea offer, and he appealed based on ineffective assistance of counsel.

A System of Pleas

The importance of this issue is underscored by the predominance of the plea system to obtain criminal convictions. The United States Sentencing Commission reports that in 2009, 96 percent of federal offenders pled guilty. The rate in state court systems is similar.

As one of the briefs in Lafler pointed out, citing a 1992 article, "[P]lea bargaining...is not some adjunct to the criminal justice system; it is the criminal justice system."

The court recognizes that because of how central the plea system has become, merely finding a fair trial later does not "inoculate" an error that occurred during the pretrial stage of plea negotiations.

Strickland v. Washington

In Strickland v. Washington, the court first adopted a two-part standard for evaluating claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. First, the defendant must show that counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.

Second, the court required that "[t]he defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different."

Constitutional Standards for Guilty Pleas

The two-part Strickland test applies to challenges to guilty pleas based on ineffective assistance of counsel.

Justice Kennedy states in Lafler that, "in order to satisfy the "prejudice" requirement, the defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's errors, he would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial."

Here, Cooper's attorney apparently misunderstood the potential for the sentence that Cooper ultimately received. The prejudice was shown by the fact that, but for the defense attorney's "deficient performance," Cooper would most likely have accepted the plea.

Stated another way, Cooper would probably not have taken the risk of proceeding to trial and facing a sentence three and one-half times longer than the plea offer, had he been adequately advised of the potential consequences.

The remedy provided by the court requires the reoffer of the original plea, with the trial court given discretion to review and modify the result as needed.

The complexity of criminal charges, procedures, sentencing and appeals means the vast majority of criminal defendants must rely very heavily on their criminal defense counsel.

Justice Scalia, who in a sharp dissent, alleges that the majority opinion suffers from multiple failures of basic logic and a lack of understanding Supreme Court precedent, further underscoring the complexity of this topic.

Article provided by Robin R. Scroggie
Visit us at www.scroggielawfirm.com.