Federal Criminal Cases, 1928-1930: Surprisingly Similar to Today, But Also Very Different

In anticipation of the conference here next month on the Wickersham Commission, I’ve been reviewing the thirteen voluminous reports the Commission issued in 1931 on various aspects of the criminal-justice system.  One that holds some interesting surprises is the “Progress Report on the Study of the Federal Courts.”  The heart of this report is a fascinating, detailed statistical analysis of the criminal cases in the District of Connecticut for fiscal years 1928-1930.

One thing that strikes me as remarkable is the almost complete absence of trials — the system was dominated then, as now, by guilty pleas.  Old-timers today will sometimes tell you about a golden age of trials in the federal system in the 1970′s.  In that decade, guilty plea rates hovered between 77% and 82%.  After 1981, the rate climbed steadily, reaching more than 96% of adjudicated cases in 2009.  But this, apparently, is not a new phenomenon.  Among 740 criminal cases filed in the District of Connecticut between 1928 and 1931, only nine went to trial.  That’s right, only nine trials in three years, or 1.5 criminal trials per judge per year.  (Eight of these trials, by the way, took less than one full day to try.)  The guilty plea rate in adjudicated cases was over 98%.

After doing some digging for national data, I discovered that the guilty plea rate rose steadily between 1916 and 1933, reaching a peak of 91%.  (See Ron Wright’s helpful data compilation here.)  So, Connecticut seems not to have been terribly atypical.

The Connecticut data are, in fact, quite reminiscent of a modern“fast-track” plea-bargaining system.  

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Effective Assistance of Counsel and Tribal Courts—A Different Standard?

Virtually none of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees or prohibitions applies to the actions of Indian tribal governments when those governments are exercising their inherent or retained powers. For this reason, among others, Congress in 1968 passed the Indian Civil Rights Act (ICRA), 25 U.S.C. §§ 1301-1303, which imposes on tribal governments most though not all of the guarantees found in the Bill of Rights and 14th Amendment. After almost 45 years, however, it remains uncertain whether or to what extent ICRA’s statutory guarantees must parallel the interpretations given to the respective constitutional guarantees on which they are based.

Among ICRA’s original provisions is a command that “[n]o Indian tribe in exercising powers of self-government shall . . . deny to any person in a criminal proceeding the right . . . at his own expense to have the assistance of counsel for his defense . . . .” This, of course, is an analog to the 6th Amendment guarantee that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence,” which the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted as requiring “reasonably effective assistance,” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984), by “an advocate who is . . . a member of the bar,” i.e., a licensed attorney. Wheat v. United States, 486 U.S. 153, 159 (1988).

In the recent case of Jackson v. Tracy, No. CV 11–00448–PHX–FJM, 2012 WL 3704698 (D. Ariz. Aug. 28, 2012), a federal district court has held that ICRA’s assistance-of-counsel guarantee requires neither that one’s advocate be a licensed attorney nor that the advocate be held to the standard of a reasonably effective attorney.

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Why Were the Lawyers Wearing Blinders?

In the September 2009 issue of the ABA Journal, the author of the article “Town Without Pity,” Wendy Davis, asked, “Where Were the Lawyers?”  Judge Mark Ciavarella had been giving jail sentences to juveniles that were shocking to the conscience for minor offenses.  All the lawyers in the court system, including the district attorney, knew what was happening, but very few challenged Ciavarella. Barry Dyller, a local Wilkes-Barre attorney quoted in the article, stated that “only the absolute strongest lawyers, who didn’t mind facing his wrath” ever argued with the judge’s decisions. The other defense attorneys, the article notes, appeared resigned to these rulings. Additionally, if there were any lawyers who suspected the judge was taking bribes, there is no record of any stepping forward.

In August 2011, Ciavarella was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison on racketeering charges, among others, in a case that was called “Kids For Cash.”  Ciavarella, along with another Luzerne County judge, accepted bribes totaling over $2.6 million from the builder of juvenile detention centers in exchange for sending thousands of children to newly built facilities in order to ensure the facilities would be adequately utilized. 

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