Factors Contributing to Guilty Plea Wrongful Convictions: A Quantitative Analysis of Australian Appellate Court Judgments

Criminal defendants can face significant pressures to plead guilty, but wrongful conviction scholarship has largely overlooked the study of guilty pleas. This study content analyzed 139 Australian appellate court judgments in which a guilty plea conviction was overturned, investigating the types of...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Nash, Caitlin (Author) ; Dioso-Villa, Rachel (Author) ; Porter, Louise (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2024
In: Crime & delinquency
Year: 2024, Volume: 70, Issue: 2, Pages: 441-465
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Keywords:
erroneous convictions
false guilty pleas
Guilty pleas
miscarriage of justice
system error
Wrongful convictions
Description
Summary:Criminal defendants can face significant pressures to plead guilty, but wrongful conviction scholarship has largely overlooked the study of guilty pleas. This study content analyzed 139 Australian appellate court judgments in which a guilty plea conviction was overturned, investigating the types of errors involved in these convictions, and the stage of the criminal justice process at which the errors occurred. The findings revealed that errors occurred during the police investigation, pretrial preparations, and formal court procedures, with the most frequent errors involving incorrect or inappropriate charges, inadequate legal representation, and the courts erroneously accepting a guilty plea. The findings raise important implications regarding the adequacy of safeguards to ensure guilty pleas are appropriate or factually and legally accurate.
ISSN:1552-387X
DOI:10.1177/00111287211054723