Opinion ID: 2374094
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: effect of offer by prosecutor to reduce charge in event of plea of guilty.

Text: In his motion for new trial defendant alleged that in the week prior to trial the prosecuting attorney advised counsel for defendant that he would reduce the charge to murder in the second degree and recommend a sentence of a term of years if defendant would plead guilty. He further alleges that, although advised by his attorney to so plead, defendant insisted on standing trial. Relying on Pope v. United States, 392 U.S. 651, 88 S.Ct. 2145, 20 L.Ed.2d 1317, and United States v. Jackson, 390 U.S. 570, 88 S.Ct. 1209, 20 L.Ed.2d 138, defendant contends that it was a violation of his Fifth and Sixth Constitutional Amendment rights to require him, under such circumstances, to risk the death penalty in order to exercise his constitutional right to plead not guilty and submit the question of his guilt or innocence to a jury. When the motion for new trial was heard, the prosecuting attorney and the attorney for the defendant both testified as to their conversations as to possible disposition of this case on a plea of guilty. There was some divergence of recollection as to whether the prosecuting attorney offered to reduce the charge for a plea of guilty or whether he responded to a question by counsel for defendant as to what he would recommend if defendant would plead guilty to second degree murder. These differences are not of consequence here because in any event they show that although plea negotiations between counsel did occur, they led to nothing because defendant insisted on standing trial. The cases of Pope and Jackson are not applicable to this situation. In those cases the statute provided that in the event of a verdict of guilty the death penalty could be assessed, but no provision for the death penalty was made where the defendant pleaded guilty. Thus, the statute, by its terms, provided that if an individual chose to exercise his right to stand trial, he ran the risk of being sentenced to death, whereas if he pleaded guilty to the same charge, the most he could get was life imprisonment. The court in both cases held that the portion of the law imposing the death penalty was unconstitutional because it imposed a statutorily mandated price for standing trial instead of pleading guilty. The cases do not purport to have any application to plea negotiations in a case where the maximum potential punishment is the same regardless of whether the case is disposed of by trial or by plea of guilty. Defendant's brief expressly states that he does not attack the constitutionality of the statute involved in this case. He recognizes that under the Missouri statute a defendant in a felony-murder case could be sentenced to death in a case tried before a jury or in a jury-waived case or on a plea of guilty. His brief says, It is not the law that we attack in this argumentit is the situation created by a prosecuting attorney's offer to reduce a charge from first degree murder, a capital charge, to second degree murder if a defendant will enter a plea of guilty. His position is clarified further when he states in his brief, When the prosecuting attorney offered to reduce the charge against the defendant in the case at bar to murder in the second degree, a non-capital offense, if he would enter a plea of guilty, he as a public official had announced that the ends of justice would have been served if there was a conviction and sentence for a period of years or for life, but that if defendant insisted on his right to have a jury trial, then he should pay the penalty of death if the prosecuting attorney could secure such a verdict from the jury. Defendant would bind the state in the event of trial to the reduced charge to which the prosecuting attorney was willing that the accused should plead if he entered a plea of guilty. His position is that thereafter to impose any greater penalty on the defendant than the prosecuting attorney would have recommended amounts to a penalty imposed on defendant for exercising his privilege of pleading not guilty and standing trial. We do not agree. Properly safeguarded, plea negotiations are proper and have been approved. For example, in Meyer v. United States, 8th Cir., 424 F.2d 1181, 1188, the court, quoting from Brown v. Beto, 5th Cir., 377 F.2d 950, 956, said: Properly safeguarded plea discussions and plea agreements between an accused and a prosecutor are consistent with the fair administration of justice. They are a `pervasive practice. The great majority of criminal cases are disposed of by pleas of guilty, and a substantial number of these pleas are the result of prior dealings between the prosecutor and the defendant or his attorney.' In the recently published Standards Relating To Pleas Of Guilty, a pamphlet written by the American Bar Association Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice, the American Bar Association expressly approves plea discussions and plea agreements. In Part III, § 3.4 thereof, the standards recite that plea discussions with the prosecuting attorney and any plea agreements reached are not admissible in evidence for or against a defendant unless he subsequently enters a plea of guilty or nolo contendere which is not withdrawn. We approve of that rule. Otherwise, a defendant, merely by engaging in nonproductive plea negotiations, could effectively reduce the charge which he would be required to defend. The result would be to discourage or perhaps prevent plea discussions and attempts to agree (by concession in the charge to which the plea is to be entered or by agreement on a recommendation as to punishment) on disposition of criminal cases. We overrule this contention. WAS DUE PROCESS VIOLATED BY ASSESSMENT OF DEATH PENALTY IN A ONE-STEP TRIAL IN WHICH INSTRUCTIONS DID NOT PROVIDE SPECIFIC STANDARDS FOR ITS ASSESSMENT? These questions are raised by defendant but they have been settled in the cases of Crampton v. Ohio, No. 204, 402 U.S. 183, 91 S.Ct. 1454, 28 L.Ed.2d 711, and McGautha v. California, No. 203, 402 U.S. 183, 91 S.Ct. 1454, 28 L.Ed.2d 711, both decided on May 3, 1971. On the authority of those cases, we decide these issues against defendant.