It’s not the health care bill, but it’s a decision with some teeth.
Expanding the constitutional rights of defendants in America’s justice system, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that they are guaranteed effective legal representation in plea bargain agreements. In two cases that were both decided by 5-4 votes, defendants can go back to court and challenge their sentences on the grounds that their attorneys gave them bad legal advice.
Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan voted in favor of the expansion. Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, and Samuel A. Alito Jr. voted against it.
There will now be greater scrutiny over whether plea bargain negotiations are in line with the Constitution.
Kennedy wrote the majority opinion for the court and pointed out that around 95 percent of convictions in America are the result of plea bargains, not trials. He also wrote that the right to competent assistance of counsel at trial, guaranteed by the Constitution, doesn’t exclude pleas bargains negotiated before a trial begins. Stevens said the criminal justice system is a system of pleas.
“The reality is that plea bargains have become so central to the administration of the criminal justice system that defense counsel have responsibilities,” wrote Kennedy. “That must be met to render the adequate assistance of counsel that the Sixth Amendment requires.”
Rick Jones of Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem said that a Supreme Court ruling on this issue should not have been necessary. Nonetheless, the legal system has made such a ruling a necessity.
“It’s almost a no-brainer, right? Why else have counsel if it’s not gonna be effective? You should have it at every stage of the proceedings,” said Jones. “Every month and every day, we find out someone was incarcerated unfairly because of ineffective counsel or false confessions or lineups that were done wrong. Effective counsel is necessary for people to believe in a just system and have the confidence that justice will prevail.” Cases around the country support Jones’ thinking.
In one case in Missouri, Galin Edward Frye’s attorney never told him of a plea bargain offer from state prosecutors after being charged with driving with a revoked license. He was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty. One of the plea bargain deals would’ve had Frye serving only 10 days in jail.
In another case in Michigan, prosecutors offered Anthony Cooper 51 to 85 months in prison in exchange for a guilty plea on an attempted murder charge. Cooper turned down that offer, among others, because his attorney allegedly told him that he couldn’t be found guilty of attempted murder because he shot his victim below the waist.
Cooper was convicted during the trial and sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison.