In 2015, Gilberto Garza Jr. was charged with aggravated assault and the possession of and intent to deliver a controlled substance. The prosecution offered Garza a plea deal that included waiving his right to future appeals, which he accepted. But Garza later asked his attorney to appeal his sentence. Garza’s attorney informed him that his appeal would be "problematic" due to the waiver in the plea agreement and did not file an appeal. Garza subsequently filed a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel, arguing that his attorney should have filed an appeal regardless of the waiver.
The Idaho trial and appellate courts both ruled against Garza. However, the U.S. Supreme Court recently reversed the prior courts’ decisions, holding that the attorney’s failure to file an appeal adversely affected Garza despite the waiver, as this waiver does not bar all appeals.
Most criminal cases end in plea bargains—agreements through which defendants plead guilty in exchange for lesser charges and/or more lenient sentences. Yet not much is known about the psychological factors that may affect whether defendants accept plea offers. The Garza case raises an important issue: Why do some defendants accept plea offers that they do not wholeheartedly support?
In a 2017 review article in American Psychologist, Allison Redlich and colleagues discussed research on how plea offers are framed and how the attorney’s perceived authority may affect defendants’ plea decisions. Framing an issue in terms of gains rather than losses can make decision-makers more risk-averse. In a classic framing study, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (1981) told participants that an unusual disease was expected to kill 600 people. They then presented participants with two options for combating the disease: Option A, which would save 200 people, and Option B, which had a one-third probability of saving all 600 people, and a two-thirds probability of saving no one. Participants demonstrated a clear preference for Option A, revealing that they were more likely to choose the option framed as a gain rather than risk a potential loss.
Framing research suggests that defendants will be more likely to accept plea offers that are framed as preserving gains (If you accept the deal, you will be better off than if you received the maximum sentence at trial) rather than risking losses (If you accept the deal, you will be worse off than if you received the lightest sentence at trial).
Beyond framing, defendants may be more likely to accept a plea offer simply because the deal is presented by an attorney, whom they perceive as an authority figure. Redlich and colleagues noted that authority figures can garner high levels of compliance because some defendants may acquiesce, assuming attorneys "know best."
The Garza case illustrates the importance of attorney-client interactions in defendants’ plea decisions, yet psycholegal research has only scratched the surface on this issue. More field and experimental data are needed regarding attorney-client interactions, including on how attorneys commonly frame plea offers and whether defendants feel compelled to accept any favorably presented offer. Perhaps the high rate of plea deals is rooted in attorneys’ own risk-averse proclivities, which lead them to frame plea offers as gains rather than losses. Further, are attorneys and defendants aware of how these psychological factors may affect their plea decisions? We suspect they’re not (though they might not agree).
“Judicial Notebook” is a project of APA Div. 9 (Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues).
