ABSTRACT

Since the majority of criminal cases end in a guilty pleas, there is growing research on issues related to the plea process, including ways in which the court determines the validity of guilty pleas. Ideally, plea validity evaluations would be consistent across courts and jurisdictions. However, prior research on felony plea hearings suggests that key elements of plea validity may not always be present, indicating there is variation in how courts assess plea validity. The current study examines potential variations in judicial plea colloquies by systematically observing plea hearings (n = 593) in a suburban circuit court. Information on the length of the hearing and the types of questions asked during the judicial colloquies was compared for the 520 (87.7%) defendants who pled to felony charges versus the 73 (12.3%) defendants who pled down to misdemeanor-only charges. Results show plea hearings for misdemeanor-only defendants were significantly shorter and, as a result, included significantly fewer questions compared to felony defendants. This indicates that misdemeanor-only plea cases may be rushed through the court process and that these defendants may not be provided the same information about the consequences of their pleas as felony defendants, posing a threat to the validity of these pleas.

摘要

由于大多数刑事案件以认罪告终，因此对认罪程序相关问题的研究越来越多，包括法院确定认罪有效性的方式。理想情况下，辩诉有效性评估在法院和司法管辖区是一致的。然而，先前对重罪认罪听证会的研究表明，认罪有效性的关键要素可能并不总是存在，这表明法院评估认罪有效性的方式存在差异。目前的研究通过系统地观察郊区巡回法院的认罪听证会（n = 593）来检查司法认罪座谈会的潜在变化。对 520 名 (87.7%) 被告提出重罪指控的被告与 73 名 (12. 3%) 被告只接受轻罪指控。结果显示，仅针对轻罪被告的认罪听证会明显缩短，因此与重罪被告相比，包括的问题明显减少。这表明仅轻罪的认罪案件可能会匆忙通过法庭程序，并且这些被告可能无法获得与重罪被告相同的认罪后果信息，从而对这些认罪的有效性构成威胁。