In Cecil’s Column on the Baby in the Microwave, he mentions that an 19 year-old entered “an Alford plea, meaning she did not admit guilt but acknowledged there was enough evidence to convict her.”
I’d never heard of this sort of plea - does anyone know the story behind it? Is it common? Is it valid outside the USA?
Grim
It’s not unusual.
The plea is as you describe above: while not admitting guilt, the accused agrees that there is sufficient evidence for the state to convict. From a practical standpoint, there is very little difference between a guilty plea and an Alford plea. The court treats the plea as one of guilty for sentencing purposes. You may have heard it referred to as a nolo contendere plea.
Why do it?
From a practical standpoint, it allows you to deny guilt in other contexts, such as a civil suit. Normally, the fact that you plead guilty to a crime can be used in a civil trial against you as evidence that you committed the charged crime; a nolo contendere plea forecloses that possibility.
It’s called an Alford plea because of North Carolina v. Alford, the 1970 Supreme Court case that established that an accused may voluntarily, knowingly, and understandingly consent to the imposition of a prison sentence even though he is unwilling to admit participation in the crime.
The name comes from North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970). Alford entered a guilty plea on a murder charge to avoid a death sentence, but maintained actual innocence on the record. He later challenged his plea as compelled. The Supreme Court held that a plea of guilty can be made knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently even if a defendant maintains that they did not commit some or all of the elements of the crime. This is known nowadays as an “Alford plea.”
Um. North Carolina v Alford, 40 US 25, 91 S Ct 160, 27 L Ed2d 162 (1970).
“An accused may voluntarily, knowingly, and understandingly consent to the imposition of a prison sentence even though he is unwilling to admit participation in the crime, or even if his guilty plea contains a protestation of innocence, when … he intelligently concludes that his interests require a guilty plea and the record strongly evidences guilt.”
In other words, plea bargain. In the microwave case, Otte pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter so that she would not face the consequences of a trial for murder (or so I read it).
For clarity: an Alford plea is a guilty plea, but without admitting the facts of the allegations. Way back when, Alford argued that such a plea is, in fact, coerced (it’s not). It’s also been argued (but not, I think, by Alford) that such a plea may not be used as proof of guilt in subsequent legal actions (yes, it can).
Bricker, I’m pretty sure that’s wrong. As I understand it, the fact that it’s a guilty plea is what distinguishes “Alford” from “No Contest.”
Yup. People v. Miller, 1998 N.Y. Int. 0022 (Mar. 31, 1998).
I find this odd. In Canada, if an accused enters a guilty plea but denies committing an element of the offence, the judge rejects the plea. A guilty plea means that you accept that you’ve committed the crime.
What’s the policy reason for allowing someone to say they’re guilty while simultaneously denying it?
In brutally short strokes, the “policy” reason for allowing it is mostly that it saves the cost and intrinsic unpredictability of a trial.
Sure, but we have the same pressures in Canada, but it’s not led to this result. If the accused disagrees with the Crown’s facts on sentence, and it’s a material difference, the Court expunges the guilty plea and you go to trial.