Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 (1969), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court determined that when a defendant enters into a plea bargain, they waive their Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.

The defendant was an African-American charged with robbery, which carried a death sentence in Alabama at the time.

The case was already before the state court under Alabama's automatic appeal statute.

[2] The Court then held that a waiver of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and the right to trial by jury cannot be presumed from a silent record.

The Court then held that acceptance of the petitioner's guilty plea in the case was a reversible error since the record failed to disclose that the petitioner appropriately entered his plea of guilty.