Someone asked me recently why so many defendants enter Alford pleas in North Carolina. I’ve wondered the same thing. When I was in private practice, I worked mostly in federal court, where Alford pleas are vanishingly rare. But in North Carolina’s state courts, they are almost routine. My interlocutor’s question got me thinking about Alford pleas more broadly, so I thought I’d do a post about them. It turned out to be a little longer than I intended, so my apologies for that. Generally, an Alford plea is when a defendant maintains his innocence but admits that the state has sufficient evidence to convict him and agrees to be treated as guilty. It’s called an Alford plea after North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970). The defendant in that case was charged with first-degree murder. The evidence against him was strong: witnesses stated that “that shortly before the killing Alford took his gun from his house, stated his intention to kill the victim, and returned home with the declaration that he had carried out the killing.” The defendant had a lawyer, who explained his rights to him and advised him to plead guilty. Alford maintained his innocence, but in light of the evidence, agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder in order to avoid the death penalty and secure a 30-year sentence. Alford later filed a habeas petition in federal court, arguing that his plea was “involuntary because its principal motivation was fear of the death penalty.” Although the federal [...]
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