Plea appeals across two states

• In Event: The Process and Consequences of Guilty Pleas

Abstract

Though most guilty plea agreements require criminal defendants to waive many rights, including the right to appeal, some evidence indicates that individuals still appeal these convictions. There is very little known about the incidence of such appeals, the grounds for them, and success rates. Using a newly collected dataset of publicly available appellate court opinions in two states, this project explores these three issues. First, significant variation exists across the two states for all three research questions. Appeals were much more frequent in State A and the most common ground for appeal in State A was excessive sentence (approximately 73% of cases), compared to motions to suppress in State B (approximately 29% of cases). Ineffective assistance of counsel was a frequent ground of appeal in State B (29 out of 129 cases) and was rarely raised in State A. Lastly, 98.4% of all appeals were affirmed in State A, compared to only 69.5% in State B, demonstrating that defendants have a much higher likelihood of success in State B. Together, these results shed light on a critical and understudied topic in sentencing and demonstrate that state practices on plea appeals diverge significantly.

Authors

• Jacqueline G. Lee, Boise State University

• Kelsey S. Henderson, Portland State University