Editing Plea (section)

==United States==

==="Voluntary and intelligent"===
A [[defendant]] who enters a plea of guilty must do so, in the phraseology of a 1938 [[Supreme Court of the United States|United States Supreme Court]] case, ''[[Johnson v. Zerbst]]'',<!--need cite--> "knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently". The burden is on the prosecution to prove that all waivers of the defendant's rights complied with due process standards. Accordingly, in cases of all but the most minor offenses, the court or the prosecution (depending upon local custom and the presiding judge's preference) will engage in a [[plea colloquy]] wherein they ask the defendant a series of rote questions about the defendant's knowledge of his rights and the voluntariness of the plea. Typically the hearing on the guilty plea is transcribed by a [[court reporter]], and the transcript is made a part of the permanent record of the case to preserve the conviction's validity from being challenged at some future time. "Intelligent" has been described as "an elusive term, meaning that the defendant knows his rights, the nature of the charge to which he is pleading, and the consequences of his plea."<ref>{{citation|volume=70|publisher=Judicature|pages=203|date=1986–1987|title=Judicial Supervision of the Guilty Plea Process: A Study of Six Jurisdictions|author=McDonald, William F.}}</ref> "Voluntary" has been described as also "an elusive term which has come to mean not induced by 'improper' inducements, such as [[bribing]] or physical violence, but not including the inducements normally associated with [[charge bargaining|charge]] and [[sentence bargaining]] (except for inducements involving '[[overcharging (law)|overcharging]]' by prosecutors)."<ref>{{citation|volume=70|publisher=Judicature|pages=203|date=1986–1987|title=Judicial Supervision of the Guilty Plea Process: A Study of Six Jurisdictions|author=McDonald, William F.}}</ref> Empirical research has demonstrated that violent conditions in jails during pretrial detention of people who are legally innocent do improperly induce or coerce guilty pleas,<ref>{{citation|journal=Journal of Criminal Justice|volume=82|issue=4|date=2022|title=How do the consequences of pretrial detention on guilty pleas and carceral sentences vary between misdemeanor and felony cases?|author=Thomas, C.|author2=Cadoff, B.|author3=Wolff, K. T.|author4=Chauhan, P.|page=102008 |doi=10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2022.102008 |s2cid=253991546 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365754233}}</ref> but this has not constitutionally invalidated the pleas under current Supreme Court precedent.

Virtually all jurisdictions hold that defense counsel need not discuss with defendants the collateral consequences of pleading guilty, such as [[consecutive sentencing]] or even treatment as an aggravating circumstance in an ongoing capital prosecution.<ref>{{citation|volume=87|publisher=Cornell L. Rev.|pages=697|date=2001–2002|title=Effective Assistance of Counsel and the Consequences of Guilty Pleas|author1=Chin, Gabriel J. |author2=Holmes, Richard W. Jr. |journal=Cornell Law Review |url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/clqv87&div=33}}</ref> However, the Supreme Court recognized an important exception in ''[[Padilla v. Kentucky]]'' (2010), in which the Court held that defense counsel is obligated to inform defendants of the potential immigration consequences of a guilty plea. Thus a defendant who is not advised of immigration consequences may have an [[ineffective assistance of counsel]] argument.

In the U.S. federal system, the court must also satisfy itself that there is a factual basis for the guilty plea.<ref name=cornell11/> However, this safeguard may not be very effective because the parties, having reached a plea agreement, may be reluctant to reveal any information that could disturb the agreement. When a plea agreement has been made, the judge's factual basis inquiry is usually perfunctory, and the standard for finding that the plea is factually based is very low.<ref>{{citation|title=Judicial Participation in Plea Negotiations: A Comparative View|author=Turner, Jenia Iontcheva|publisher=The American Journal of Comparative Law|volume=54|number=1|date=Winter 2006|pages=199–267}}</ref>

===Special pleas===
Other special pleas used in criminal cases include the plea of mental incompetence, challenging the jurisdiction of the court over the defendant's person, the plea in bar, attacking the jurisdiction of the court over the crime charged, and the plea in abatement, which is used to address procedural errors in bringing the charges against the defendant, not apparent on the "face" of the indictment or other charging instrument. Special pleas in federal criminal cases have been abolished, and defenses formerly raised by special pleas are now raised by motion to dismiss.

A conditional plea is one where the defendant pleads guilty to the offense but expressly reserves the right to appeal certain aspects of the charges (for example, that the evidence was illegally obtained).

In ''[[United States v. Binion]]'', malingering or feigning illness during a competency evaluation was held to be [[obstruction of justice]] and led to an enhanced sentence. Although the defendant had pleaded guilty, he was not awarded a reduction in sentence because the feigned illness was considered to mean that he was not [[acceptance of responsibility|accepting responsibility]] for his illegal behavior.<ref>{{cite journal
|url=http://jaapl.org/content/34/1/126.full
|title=Behavior of the Defendant in a Competency-to-Stand-Trial Evaluation Becomes an Issue in Sentencing
|journal=Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
|date=January 2006
|volume=34
|issue=1
|pages=126–128
|publisher=Journal of the American Psychiatric Association
|access-date=2007-10-10
|last1=Darani
|first1=Shaheen
}}
</ref>