NCJ Number
80302
Journal
Yale Law Journal Volume: 90 Issue: 7 Dated: (June 1981) Pages: 1581-1622
Date Published
1981
Length
42 pages
Annotation
This article argues that broad, obligatory preplea disclosure would be an important remedy for some of the inequities in the present criminal justice system.
Abstract
The present criminal justice system offers defendants many inducements to plead guilty but affords them only minimal safeguards against unfair and inaccurate convictions. Moreover, prosecutors and defense attorneys can abuse the interests of defendants by taking advantage of the imbalance in information that pervades the criminal process. Despite these inadequacies, the current guilty plea process, which gains what legitimacy it has from defendants' consent to waive trial, does not require that defendants be given any meaningful opportunity to make their consent fully informed. To exercise their consent rationally and to protect themselves against unfair and inaccurate convictions, defendants must be given the opportunity to assess their chances of acquittal and thus, to evaluate the consideration being given in return for their guilty pleas. The information needed for making such an assessment is commonly within the prosecutor's exclusive possession, is costly to discover by independent investigation, and cannot readily be supplied by defense counsel. Requiring disclosure broad enough to provide defendants with a sufficient opportunity to assess the likelihood of acquittal would, in many cases, be equivalent to instituting an obligatory open file system. Such a system, however, would not be drastically different from present prosecutorial practices. Broad disclosure would have few, if any, adverse consequences for the plea and trial processes and would increase the fairness of the plea bargaining process. A total of 194 footnotes are included. (Author summary modified)