North Carolina v. Alford
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North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed on a 5-3 vote that there are no constitutional barriers in place to prevent a judge from accepting a guilty plea from a defendant who wants to plead guilty while still protesting his innocence. This type of plea has become known as an Alford plea, differing slightly from the nolo contendere plea in which the defendant agrees to being sentenced for the crime, but does not admit guilt.
Henry Alford was indicted for first-degree murder in North Carolina in December 1963. His attorney interviewed several witnesses who led him to believe Alford was guilty, and that Alford would probably be convicted in a trial. The attorney recommended Alford plead guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree murder in order to face a lesser sentence, but left the decision to Alford. Before the plea was entered, the court heard sworn testimony from three witnesses. There were no eyewitnesses to the murder, but witnesses did swear that Alford had taken his gun from his house and declared he was going to kill the victim, and upon returning, stated that he had killed the victim. Alford pled guilty to second-degree murder but declared to the court that he was in fact innocent, and was pleading guilty only to avoid the death penalty, which might have been applied had he been convicted of first-degree murder.
The judge sentenced Alford to the maximum second-degree murder penalty of 30 years in prison. Alford appealed on the constitutional ground that his plea was "the product of fear and coercion", in violation of his constitutional rights. A federal appeals court had ruled that "Alford's Guilty plea was involuntary because its principal motivation was fear of the death penalty", and the court should have rejected the guilty plea.
Justice Byron White wrote that the Court had accepted the case for review because some states authorized conviction only for a crime "where guilt is shown", including by means of a guilty plea that included an actual admission of guilt; but "others have concluded that they should not 'force any defense on a defendant in a criminal case,' particularly when advancement of the defense might 'end in disaster...'" and therefore would accept a guilty plea in Alford's circumstances.
White wrote that courts must accept whatever plea a defendant chooses to enter, as long as the defendant is competently represented by counsel; the plea is intelligently chosen; and "the record before the judge contains strong evidence of actual guilt". Faced with "grim alternatives", the defendant's best choice of action may be to plead guilty to the crime, White wrote, and the courts must accept the defendant's choice made in his own interests.
In the dissent, Justice William Brennan stated that capital punishment in the United States was unconstitutional — this was effectively the case between 1967 and 1976 — and wrote that the actual effect of this unconstitutional threat to Alford was to induce a guilty plea. He concluded the plea should have been vacated and Alford should have been retried, writing:
- ...the facts set out in the majority opinion demonstrate that Alford was "so gripped by fear of the death penalty" that his decision to plead guilty was not voluntary but was "the product of duress as much so as choice reflecting physical constraint." (footnotes removed)
Some critics have spoken out against the nolo contendere and Alford pleas on the moral grounds that they undermine public confidence in the accuracy and fairness of the criminal justice system, sending some people to jail who are unrepentant or innocent; and that they dodge the "morality play" aspect of a criminal trial, in which upright civilization is vindicated and the community sees that the guilty are punished.[citation needed]
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- ^ 400 U.S. 25 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.
- [2] - Harmonizing Substantive Criminal Law Values and Criminal Procedure: The Case of Alford and Nolo Contendere Pleas, originally published in the Cornell Law Review, Volume 88, Number 6, July 2003
