RT Article
T1 Factors Contributing to Guilty Plea Wrongful Convictions: A Quantitative Analysis of Australian Appellate Court Judgments
JF Crime & delinquency
VO 70
IS 2
SP 441
OP 465
A1 Nash, Caitlin
A2 Dioso-Villa, Rachel
A2 Porter, Louise
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1882524268
AB 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.
K1 erroneous convictions
K1 false guilty pleas
K1 Guilty pleas
K1 miscarriage of justice
K1 system error
K1 Wrongful convictions
DO 10.1177/00111287211054723