Factors Contributing to Guilty Plea Wrongful Convictions

A Quantitative Analysis of Australian Appellate Court Judgments

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21309201
AutoresCaitlin Nash (0000-0003-0938-5528, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, autor de correspondencia), Rachel Dioso‐villa (0000-0002-9909-5091, Griffith University), Rachel Dioso-Villa (Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia), Louise Porter (0000-0003-4687-518X, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia)
Año2024
Volumen70
Número2
Páginas441-465
Fecha de publicación2024-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCrime & Delinquency (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0011-1287 • E-ISSN: 1552-387X
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00111287211054723
OpenAlexW3213014755
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas27

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

Conviction · Criminal justice · Criminal procedure · Criminology · Innocence · Plea · Political science · Scholarship · Criminal Law and Evidence · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Psychology