Court Opinion

ID: 9427392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:20:34.401786+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:06.736969
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the Court that United States v. Jackson, 390 U. S. 570, is not controlling in this case. In the Jackson case, a convicted defendant could be sentenced to death if he had requested a jury trial but could be sentenced to no more than a life sentence if he either had pleaded guilty or had pleaded not guilty and waived a jury trial. Under these circumstances, the Court held that this part of the federal statute was unconstitutional because it “impose [d] an impermissible burden upon the exercise of a constitutional right.” Id., at 572.
Under the New Jersey statutory scheme, by contrast, no such impermissible burden is present. Unlike the statute at issue in the Jackson case, the death penalty is not involved here, and a convicted defendant can be sentenced to the maximum penalty of life imprisonment whether he pleads non vult or goes to trial. Moreover, although in New Jersey a defendant pleads non vult to a general indictment of murder, he can be sentenced to the maximum sentence even though the underlying facts would have supported no more than a second-degree murder conviction if the defendant had gone to trial and been found guilty by a jury. Since the latter offense can*227not be punished by life imprisonment, a defendant who is guilty of second-degree murder is subject to a greater penalty if he pleads non vult than if he pleads not guilty and is convicted of that offense after a jury trial. Finally, a defendant who pleads not guilty and goes to trial can be convicted of a lesser included offense or acquitted even though in fact he is guilty of first- or second-degree murder or manslaughter. It is, therefore, impossible to state with any confidence that the New Jersey statute does in fact penalize a defendant’s decision to plead not guilty.*
I cannot agree with the statement of the Court, however, that “[tjhere is no difference of constitutional significance between Bordenkircher and this case.” Ante, at 221. Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U. S. 357, involved plea negotiations between the attorney for the prosecution and the attorney for the defense in the context of an adversary system of criminal justice. It seems to me that there is a vast difference between the settlement of litigation through negotiation between counsel for the parties, and a state statute such as is involved in the present case. While a prosecuting attorney, acting as an advocate, necessarily must be able to settle an adversary criminal lawsuit through plea bargaining with his adversary, a state legislature has a quite different function to perform. Could a state legislature provide that the penalty for every criminal offense to which a defendant pleads guilty is to be one-half the penalty to be imposed upon a defendant convicted of the same offense after a not-guilty plea? I would suppose that such legislation would be clearly unconstitutional under United States v. Jackson. Since the reasoning of part *228of the Court's opinion suggests otherwise, I concur only in the judgment.

 Indeed, despite the appellant’s claim that the statute coerces or encourages guilty pleas, the appellant himself pleaded not guilty, went to trial and was convicted. The petitioner in United States v. Jackson, by contrast, brought a facial attack on the constitutionality of the statute by way of a motion to dismiss the indictment. See 390 U. S., at 571.