NCJ Number
80434
Journal
Georgetown Law Journal Volume: 70 Issue: 1 Dated: (October 1981) Pages: 315-344
Date Published
1981
Length
30 pages
Annotation
This paper examines the 1980 amendment to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(e)(6), which excludes from evidence statements made by a defendant to Government attorneys in the course of plea bargaining, and proposes alternatives to correct shortcomings of the amended rule.
Abstract
To regulate the practice of plea bargaining, Congress in 1975 passed the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(e)(6). Courts construing the rule's scope arrived at conflicting interpretations, and its ambiguous wording allowed some defendants who had made statements to Government agents to claim falsely that they believed the agent had the authority to plea bargain. To remedy these problems, the Supreme Court proposed an amendment which limited the rule's exclusionary effect to statements made during plea negotiations with Government attorneys. When Congress failed to act on alternative legislation, the amendment automatically became effective on December 1, 1980. Following a review of the amendment's legislative history and rationale as perceived by the Supreme Court, this note examines difficulties caused by the rule's failure to explicitly require the exclusion of statements made by defendants who are the victims of Government misrepresentation or who act under the reasonable belief that they are involved in plea discussions with Government agents possessing the authority to bargain. An analysis of the law of Miranda and the law of voluntariness concludes that neither provides adequate protection to defendants who make incriminating statements under a reasonable or fraudulently induced belief that they are plea bargaining. Courts could redress the rule's shortcomings by exercising their supervisory power or their discretion under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 2 to require Federal agents to give defendants a Miranda-type warning regarding the agent's bargaining authority. However, these are at best interim solutions to a problem better solved by legislation. A discussion of amendments proposed by the American Bar Association, the Federal Public and Community Defenders, and the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice favors the adoption of a reasonable belief test which would extend Rule 11(e)(6) protection to those defendants whose actual subjective belief that they are engaged in plea bargaining is reasonable under the circumstances. The paper includes 159 footnotes.