The Alford Doctrine: Why do judges care?
The Alford Doctrine is pretty simple. Based on North Carolina v. Alford, it simply states that a defendant may plead guilty while disputing some of the facts that form the basis for that plea. You can easily see how this is possible. The police report claims that the defendant did X, Y and Z, but the defendant is adamant that he did only Y. Y, unfortunately, is sufficient to get him convicted. So his attorney requests that the plea be an Alford plea. In 99% of cases where I’ve dealt with Alford pleas, the judge doesn’t care – he says, pretty much, “Ok, whatever”, then goes on to canvass the defendant, including a bit about the Alford plea.
Not so in other jurisdictions, apparently. Blondie writes of her own experience:
Frankly, the judges I practice in front of just don’t allow Alford pleas or No Contest pleas. Judges really want to hear a client say “I did it.” And, again and again, judges say, “If you can’t tell me what you did, you should just go to trial.”
I can think of only one time when a judge not only allowed me to enter an Alford plea, he encouraged it.
This is, frankly, quite shocking. Why do judges care whether the plea is a straight guilty plea or an Alford plea? The defendant is admitting that had he gone to trial he would have been convicted. Is that not good enough? Do we need an admission of guilt to the facts as the state claims they are? What if there are facts in there that can be legitimately disputed that will be detrimental to the defendant beyond the punishment itself? Is there a perverse desire to screw the defendant beyond whatever the jail sentence is? [For example, see this previous post]
There is a conviction; that should be good enough. It is a Supreme Court sanctioned practice. Why do trial judges care that much? What is your experience?
Note: She lumps nolo pleas in the same category. That is not usually how it is here. A nolo plea is entered with the express intent to appeal a legal ruling, such as a motion to suppress.
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about 4 years ago
Are you seriously asking the question, “Why shouldn’t the state be permitted to deprive a man of his liberty when he has not pled guilty to a crime?” The Alford doctrine is a lazy lawyer’s route to perdition.
about 4 years ago
Except that’s not what the Alford doctrine is. It’s an admission of some form of guilt, just not as stated by the State.
He does plead guilty. It’s an Alford plea. Guilty plea under the Alford doctrine.
about 4 years ago
I believe that I can recall one Alford plea that I heard about in New York. Alford, nolo, we don’t do that stuff here. The judges won’t take ‘em, end of story.
There is a very definite place for an Alford plea. When the choice is plea to something in excess of the truth or go to trial (with a high probability of conviction) and suffer the consequences of a significantly enhanced sentence, the Alford plea offers a rational alternative, particularly if we are considering it from an objective perspective. It is theoretically sound, and functionally accomplished a societally acceptable goal.
So why are New York judges so adamantly against it?
about 4 years ago
Gideon –
That’s not exactly what Alford says. Mr. Alford was not complaining that he hadn’t been allowed to plead guilty without admitting guilt, but that he had. Alford stands for the proposition that a court may take such a plea, not that an accused may enter such a plea.
Why don’t more courts take such pleas? Because most people can be coerced, in a situation in which an Alford plea is appropriate, to answer affirmatively under oath the question, “are you pleading guilty because you are guilty.” This allows the judges to pretend that they’re sending only factually guilty people to prison.
about 4 years ago
[quote comment="5757"]I believe that I can recall one Alford plea that I heard about in New York. Alford, nolo, we don’t do that stuff here. The judges won’t take ‘em, end of story.
There is a very definite place for an Alford plea. When the choice is plea to something in excess of the truth or go to trial (with a high probability of conviction) and suffer the consequences of a significantly enhanced sentence, the Alford plea offers a rational alternative, particularly if we are considering it from an objective perspective. It is theoretically sound, and functionally accomplished a societally acceptable goal.
So why are New York judges so adamantly against it?[/quote]
That seems so strange to me. Yesterday I saw two cases in which the attorney said: “Alford pleas, please” and the judge replied simply: “Yes”.
Why do you think NY judges are so adamantly against it?
about 4 years ago
It’s not only in NY that judges won’t accept alford or no contest pleas. Here, for some strange reason, Judges only accept Alford pleas if the client says that he can’t remember enough of the incident to sufficiently articulate his guilt due to excessive intoxication. Now, I’ve tried to get someone to show me where in NC v. Alford it says *anything* about an inability to recall the incident due to intoxication, but no one has yet been able to do so. Judges will not accept no contest pleas unless the state agrees.