Competence To Plead Guilty
It has been estimated that approximately 90 percent of all criminal cases in the United States are settled through guilty pleas, rather than a trial.
In Godinez v. Moran, 1993, the Supreme Court held that the competency standard for pleading guilty or waiving the right to counsel is the same as the competency standard for proceeding to trial as established in Dusky v. United States. A higher standard of competency is not required.
Read more about this topic: Competency Evaluation (law)
Famous quotes containing the words plead guilty, competence, plead and/or guilty:
“When trouble comes no mother should have to plead guilty alone. The pediatricians, psychologists, therapists, goat herders, fathers, and peer groups should all be called to the bench as well. . . .”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Witness the American ideal: the Self-Made Man. But there is no such person. If we can stand on our own two feet, it is because others have raised us up. If, as adults, we can lay claim to competence and compassion, it only means that other human beings have been willing and enabled to commit their competence and compassion to us—through infancy, childhood, and adolescence, right up to this very moment.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (20th century)
“‘Tis base to plead the unhappy prisoner’s cause,
With eloquence that’s bought.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
“Only by being guilty of Folly does mortal man in many cases arrive at the perception of Sense. A thought which should forever free us from hasty imprecations upon our ever-recurring intervals of Folly; since though Folly be our teacher, Sense is the lesson she teaches; since, if Folly wholly depart from us, Further Sense will be her companion in the flight, and we will be left standing midway in wisdom.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)