Protecting Defendants’ Sixth Amendment Right to Effective Counsel During the Plea Process: Why and How the Strickland Prejudice Requirement Must Change in the New Era of Pleas
Publication Date
Summer 2025
Presentation Length
15 minutes
College
College of Law
Department
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Student Level
Graduate
SPARK Category
Research
Faculty Advisor
Lucian Dervan
Presentation Type
Article
Summary
Plea bargaining has completely transformed the American criminal justice system over the past 50 years, with roughly 98% of criminal convictions nationwide now resulting from plea deals instead of jury trials. Considering plea bargaining’s prominence and relative novelty in America, the United States Supreme Court still has significant decisions to make regarding how pleas intertwine with other facets of criminal and constitutional law—especially criminal defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court recently denied certiorari in Davis v. United States, a case that would have resolved a significant division among the Circuit Courts regarding how a defendant can demonstrate his counsel’s actions were prejudicially ineffective during the plea bargaining process under Strickland’s ineffective assistance of counsel standard. This note analyzes the circuits’ differing approaches and ultimately advocates for the position endorsed by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her written dissent from the denial of certiorari in Davis: that a defendant may, in the absence of a formal plea offer from the government and in the presence of other supporting factors, establish prejudicially ineffective assistance of counsel when his counsel has failed to initiate plea negotiations. Otherwise, criminal defendants that have been significantly harmed by their counsel’s inaction may be afforded no constitutional protection—making the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel nothing but an empty promise in the new era of pleas.
Recommended Citation
Heppner, Caroline, "Protecting Defendants’ Sixth Amendment Right to Effective Counsel During the Plea Process: Why and How the Strickland Prejudice Requirement Must Change in the New Era of Pleas" (2025). SPARK Symposium Presentations. 567.
https://repository.belmont.edu/spark_presentations/567
