Here is a link to an article I just saw on the New York Times website:
The article discusses the issue of plea bargains and whether or not a lawyer’s mishandling of a plea bargain entitles a defendant to a retrial. Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard two cases involving plea bargains. In one case, Anthony Cooper was told to reject a plea bargain of four to seven years because his lawyer told him that he could not be convicted of attempted murder, since the woman that he allegedly shot was hit below the waist. After trial, he was sentenced to 15 to 30 years. In the other case, Galin E. Frye was never even informed that the prosecutor had offered him ninety days in prison for driving without a license. When his case went to trial, he was sentenced to three years.
In her book, The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander explains how prevalent plea bargains are in the criminal justice system as a tool for securing high conviction rates and federal funding. The two Supreme Court cases discusses in this article could be important in developing regulations (or not) for the plea bargaining process and making people more aware of the mechanism that accounts for the vast majority of convictions. Although not discussed in the two Supreme Court cases, it is interesting to consider the lifetime disenfranchisement of felons that Alexander describes. When urging their clients to accept a plea bargain, do the majority of public defendants explain that they will be labeled felons for the rest of their lives and denied housing, employment and the right to vote? It seems as though the answer is no, given the seeming lack of information given to defendants during the plea bargain process. Should lawyers be required to inform their clients of the long-term social and economic consequences of being labeled a felon? I think so. Does the absence of such information constitute incompetent litigation? Yes. Yet, we must keep in mind that public defenders often work with low budgets and overwhelming caseloads. For this reason, we need to recognize that Public Defenders Offices play a critical role in our criminal justice system and are well deserving of resources. Furthermore, I find it disconcerting that the issues of lifetime disenfranchisement and the associated apparatuses of mass incarceration were omitted from the article. This omission is indicative of the lack of candid discourse about the current penal system and its use as a tool of systematic repression. We must look at not only the time served, but also the long-term effects of being labeled a “felon” when considering the true weight of sentences. Accordingly (hopefully as a stepping-stone to an honest discussion and dismantling of the system of mass incarceration), we should require that all lawyers inform their clients of such.
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