Law Commons^™

Disciplinary Regulation Of Prosecutors As A Remedy For Abuses Of Prosecutorial Discretion: A Descriptive And Normative Analysis, Samuel J. Levine, Bruce A. Green

Scholarly Works

Although courts have traditionally relied primarily on prosecutors’ individual self-restraint and institutional self-regulation to curb prosecutors’ excesses and redress their wrongdoing, aspects of prosecutors’ conduct can be regulated externally as well. One potential source of external regulation is professional discipline. As lawyers, prosecutors are regulated by state courts, which oversee processes for disciplining lawyers who engage in misconduct. In responding to prosecutors’ wrongdoing, courts generally express a preference for professional discipline over civil liability, which is limited by principles of absolute and qualified immunity. Likewise, courts favor professional discipline over adjudicatory remedies such as reversal of criminal convictions or suppression …

Systemic Barriers To Effective Assistance Of Counsel In Plea Bargaining, Rodney J. Uphoff, Peter A. Joy

Faculty Publications

In a trio of recent cases, Padilla v. Kentucky, Missouri v. Frye, and Lafler v. Cooper, the U.S. Supreme Court has focused its attention on defense counsel's pivotal role during the plea bargaining process . At the same time that the Court has signaled its willingness to consider ineffective assistance of counsel claims at the plea stage, prosecutors are increasingly requiring defendants to sign waivers that include waiving all constitutional and procedural errors, even unknown ineffective assistance of counsel claims such as those that proved successful in Padilla and Frye. Had Jose Padilla and Galin Frye been forced to sign …

Plea Bargaining And The Right To The Effective Assistance Of Counsel: Where The Rubber Hits The Road In Capital Cases, John H. Blume

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Toward Ethical Plea Bargaining, Erica J. Hashimoto

Scholarly Works

Defendants in criminal cases are overwhelmingly more likely to plead guilty than to go to trial. Presumably, at least a part of the reason that most of them do so is that it is in their interest to plead guilty, i.e., they will receive a more favorable outcome if they plead guilty than if they go to trial. The extent to which pleas reflect fair or rational compromises in practice, however, depends upon a variety of factors, including the amount of information each of the parties has about the case. Some level of informational symmetry therefore is critical to the …

The Lawyer's "Conscience" And The Limits Of Persuasion, Abbe Smith

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

As all practicing lawyers know, interviewing and counseling are at the heart of legal representation. This is what lawyers do, even criminal trial lawyers: we talk with and advise clients. Sometimes, after considering the government’s case and available defenses, we advise clients to go to trial. More often, we advise them to take a plea.

In counseling our clients we can be as “client-centered” as the next lawyer, graciously acceding to our clients’ wishes. This is especially so when the client is making what we regard to be a reasonable choice. But clients are not always reasonable. Sometimes they are …

Prosecutorial Discretion, Plea Bargaining And The Supreme Court's Opinion In Bordenkircher V. Hayes, William T. Pizzi

Publications

No abstract provided.