Class v. United States: Bargained Justice and a System of Efficiencies

This article examines the Supreme Court decision in Class v. United States, where the Court held that a defendant does not inherently waive his or her right to appeal constitutional claims just because he or she has entered an unconditional plea of guilty. Such a waiver must be express. In reviewing the implications of the Class decision, the article gives a recount of plea bargaining’s rise in the American criminal justice system. The purpose of this recount is to show the simultaneous rise of issues such as defendant decision-making and voluntariness in the plea context. Thus, the article also examines recent psychological findings on these issues. The article specifically addresses the psychological findings that have shown factually innocent people will falsely confess in a plea-bargaining-like context to recieve certain benefits. The article closes with a consideration of the ways to address these overarching issues, given the current state of plea-bargaining practices. The article also poses a broader question that the Supreme Court will have to answer as it continues to establish plea-bargaining law: “If, even knowing the alarming power of plea bargaining to ensnare the innocent, we continue forward, are we not conceding that beyond being merely a system of pleas, today’s criminal justice system is, for the most part, actually a system of efficiencies?”

“Plea bargaining has become a fully accepted part of our criminal justice system and, because of that acceptance, our system has grown even more reliant on bargained justice for its continued functioning. But completely prohibiting plea bargaining is likely an unnecessary step, and indeed a step too far, if our focus is plea bargaining’s innocence problem. That concern is best addressed, I believe, through more focused efforts to fill in the various gaps that were created over the many years during which plea bargaining evolved and expanded in the shadows without much consideration of its operation or ramifications.” p. 137