When we made the commitment to begin covering court cases we knew it was going to be a challenge. The time, of course, was the primary concern. Even with adding another reporter to take over local government coverage, scheduling the time to be in court for every case that deserves attention is a challenge. It’s why we largely ignore things like moving violations unless they’re also connected to felony or serious misdemeanor charges.
Someone’s simple speeding ticket or an illegal U-turn aren’t really newsworthy.
Assault, murder, drug dealing, and sexual abuse, on the other hand, are newsworthy.
They’re also the most likely to earn us telephone calls from the accused and their family or friends.
One of those recent phone calls was related to a current case where the alleged perpetrator had a previous guilty plea and plea deal with the Commonwealth on similar charges.
The alleged perpetrator theirself gave me a phone call while I was still delivering newspapers – a bit of an oddity in itself as it’s usually the parents or other family members who call on their behalf. They proceeded to berate me for not getting my facts correct and warned me to not use their name in the paper in relation to false claims.
Here is the thing though, our facts were absolutely correct.
Despite the protests of the alleged perpetrator, their previous plea deal was premised on a guilty plea.
As they stated it, “I never pleaded guilty. I took an Alford plea.”
But an Alford plea is a guilty plea – with a claim of innocence despite the evidence of guilt. It’s an acknowledgement that if the case goes to trial, you’ll most likely be found guilty. So, you’re pleading guilty in order to take advantage of the benefits of a plea deal, rather than risking greater sentence at trial where all the evidence of your alleged crime will be presented to a jury. In essence an Alford plea is a way for a defendant to receive a reduced sentence for pleading guilty, while still maintaining their claim that they didn’t commit the crime in question.
It isn’t an exoneration though. It isn’t proof that you didn’t commit the crime in question.
It’s still a guilty plea.
Alford pleas are not offered in situations where there is no evidence of a crime. It’s the preponderance of evidence against an alleged perpetrator, in fact, coupled with their protestations of innocence in the face of that evidence that make Alford pleas possible.
The plea is named for Henry Alford, who pleaded guilty to receive a deal in a North Carolina capital murder case rather than pleading not guilty and going to trial. He then filed an appeal because, according to Alford, it was the fear of the death penalty alone that caused him to accept the plea deal. Not because he was actually guilty of the murder.
Of course, the evidence in the case seemed to suggest otherwise – including an earlier altercation between Alford and the victim at the victim’s home and eyewitnesses who stated they directly heard Alford take credit for the killing after the fact.
Alford’s appeal (he pleaded guilty to second degree murder to avoid the penalties associated with a first degree murder conviction) went all the way to the Supreme Court where they upheld his conviction. The court ruled that a competent lawyer was necessary for the plea deal to be offered and accepted, and that Alford was duly advised of the possibilities arising from a conviction if he maintained a plea of not guilty. This was what prompted him to accept the deal even as he maintained his innocence.
The court further found that even if Alford would have pleaded not guilty if it weren’t for the risk of a harsher sentence, evidence existed that would have supported a conviction. This was why Alford was advised by his lawyer to take the plea deal in the first place.
So, yes, if you took an Alford plea on your sexual abuse charge, you are still publicly maintaining your innocence of those charges.
But you also entered a guilty plea. You did it to avoid the potential penalty of more serious charges. And the potential for a conviction on more serious charges existed because there was evidence that could be used against you in a court of law.
Those are facts, whether you like them or not.
