Alford plea
type of guilty plea in the United States
In United States law, an Alford plea, also called a Kennedy plea in West Virginia, an Alford guilty plea, and the Alford doctrine, is a guilty plea in criminal court, whereby a defendant in a criminal case does not admit to the criminal act and asserts innocence, but accepts imposition of a sentence.
This plea may be allowed when there is a showing that the evidence to be presented by the prosecution would be likely to persuade a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt. This can be caused by circumstantial evidence and testimony favoring the prosecution, and difficulty finding evidence and witnesses that would aid the defense.
Alford pleas are permissible in all U.S. federal and state courts except Indiana, Michigan, and New Jersey. They are not permitted in United States military courts.
Origin
The Alford guilty plea is named after the United States Supreme Court case of North Carolina v. Alford (1970). Henry Alford had been indicted on a charge of first-degree murder in 1963. Evidence in the case included testimony from witnesses that Alford himself had said, after the victim's death, that he had killed the individual. Court testimony showed that Alford and the victim had argued at the victim's house.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alford plea” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.