Alford plea
[11][12][13] This plea is allowed even if the evidence to be presented by the prosecution would be likely to persuade a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Alford left the house, and afterward, the victim received a fatal gunshot wound when he opened the door responding to a knock.
Had Alford pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, he would have had the possibility of a life sentence and would have avoided the death penalty, but he did not want to admit guilt.
[18][20] Alford was sentenced to 30 years in prison after the trial judge accepted the plea bargain and ruled that the defendant had been adequately advised by his lawyer.
[18] Alford appealed and requested a new trial, arguing he was forced into a guilty plea because he was afraid of receiving a death sentence.
The Supreme Court of North Carolina ruled that the defendant had voluntarily entered the guilty plea with knowledge of what that meant.
"[16] According to University of Richmond Law Review, "When offering an Alford plea, a defendant asserts his innocence but admits that sufficient evidence exists to convict him of the offense.
[26] Defendants usually enter an Alford guilty plea if they want to avoid a possibly worse sentence were they to lose the case against them at trial.
[15][18] In 2000, the United States Department of Justice noted: "In an Alford plea the defendant agrees to plead guilty because he or she realizes that there is little chance to win acquittal because of the strong evidence of guilt.
[32] In October 2008, the United States Department of Justice defined an Alford plea as follows: "the defendant maintains his or her innocence with respect to the charge to which he or she offers to plead guilty".
[35][36] The Alford plea has received public attention for its use in resolving high-profile post-conviction proceedings for individuals who claim they were wrongfully convicted for crimes they did not commit.
[38][39] Similarly, novelist Michael Peterson, who had been convicted in 2003 of murdering his wife, entered an Alford plea in 2017 to resolve the case against him.
[37] A 2022 scripted drama miniseries, also called The Staircase, portrayed the events of the case, including the legal battle and Alford plea.
[37] In his book American Criminal Justice (1972), Jonathan D. Casper comments: "The Alford decision recognizes the plea-bargaining system, acknowledging that a man may maintain his innocence but still plead guilty in order to minimize his potential loss.
[18] "In fairness to an accused, if, after consultation with his defense counsel, he knowingly and intelligently determines that his best interest is served by an Alford-type guilty plea, he should be free to choose this path.
Stephanos Bibas writes in a 2003 analysis for Cornell Law Review that Judge Frank H. Easterbrook and a majority of scholars "praise these pleas as efficient, constitutional means of resolving cases".
"[11] Bibas instead asserts that this form of plea is "unwise and should be abolished":[11] "These procedures may be constitutional and efficient, but they undermine key values served by admissions of guilt in open court.
"[11] Legal scholar Jim Drennan, an expert on the court system at the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told the Winston-Salem Journal in a 2007 interview that the ability to use this form of guilty plea as an option in courts had a far-reaching effect throughout the United States: "We have lots of laws, but human interaction creates unique circumstances and the law has to adapt.
"[21] Common criticisms of Alford pleas include harm to victims who are denied justice, harm to society from lack of respect for the criminal justice system, the incentive for coercion, violating the right against self-incrimination, hindering rehabilitation by avoiding treatment, and the arbitrary nature in which they are utilized, allowing a person to say one thing when they mean another.
