Also known as: factual bases · factual predicate
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A requirement that a court determine there are sufficient facts in the record to support a guilty plea before entering judgment on the plea. The inquiry protects against a defendant pleading guilty to an offense the record does not show was committed and supplies information useful for sentencing.
Farid Farahani, held as an enemy combatant inside the United States, petitions for review of his detention. The government submits classified summaries and hearsay statements. The court orders a hearing at which Farahani may present evidence and cross-examine witnesses to test whether the record supplies an adequate factual basis for continued detention.
Fatou Fall files for legal separation and moves for temporary child support. Her motion is accompanied by an affidavit that details monthly expenses, the couple's assets, and the child's needs. The court reviews the affidavit to confirm it sets forth the factual basis required before granting interim relief.
Faye Fuller, charged with theft, offers an Alford plea while maintaining innocence. The prosecutor reads a police report and witness statements into the record. The judge finds the documents establish a strong factual basis for the plea and accepts it without requiring an explicit admission of guilt.
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View caseFelix Franco moves to suppress a statement made during custodial interrogation. The prosecution offers the officer's testimony and the signed waiver form. The court determines whether the record supplies a factual basis showing the waiver was knowing and voluntary before admitting the statement.
In March 1963 Ernesto Miranda was arrested at his home in Phoenix and taken to the police station where he was identified by the complaining witness. He was then questioned by two officers in Interrogation Room No. 2 for two hours. The officers did not advise him of any right to counsel. Miranda signed a typed confession that was introduced at his trial for kidnapping and rape. On October 14 1960 Michael Vignera was arrested in connection with a Brooklyn robbery. He was taken first to the 17th Detective Squad headquarters in Manhattan and later to the 66th Detective Squad. A detective questioned him for several hours without any advice concerning counsel. Vignera made an oral admission. He was then questioned by an assistant district attorney whose transcribed statement was also introduced at his trial for first-degree robbery. On March 20 1963 Carl Calvin Westover was arrested by Kansas City police as a suspect in two local robberies. Kansas City police interrogated Westover on the night of his arrest. The next day local officers interrogated him again throughout the morning. Westover was then turned over to FBI agents who questioned him for two to two-and-a-half hours about California robberies and obtained signed confessions. At the time the FBI agents began questioning Westover he had been in custody for over fourteen hours. On January 31 1963 Roy Allen Stewart was arrested at his home in connection with a series of purse-snatch robberies. During the next five days police interrogated Stewart on nine different occasions without any advice of rights. On the ninth session Stewart confessed. Transcripts of the interrogations were introduced at his trial for kidnapping rape and murder. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed Miranda's conviction. The New York courts affirmed Vignera's conviction. The Ninth Circuit affirmed Westover's conviction. The California Supreme Court reversed Stewart's conviction. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in the four cases and consolidated them for argument.
View caseFloyd Franklin, a journalist, moves to quash a grand-jury subpoena seeking confidential sources. The government proffers an affidavit describing the investigation and the reporter's likely knowledge. The court assesses whether the submission provides a sufficient factual basis to overcome the claim of privilege.
In November 1969, Paul Branzburg, a staff reporter for the Courier-Journal newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky, published an article describing his observations of two individuals synthesizing hashish from marijuana in Jefferson County. The article included a photograph and stated that Branzburg had promised not to reveal the identities of the two. He was subsequently subpoenaed by the Jefferson County grand jury and refused to identify the individuals he had observed. A state trial court ordered him to answer, and the Kentucky Court of Appeals denied his petition for relief. In January 1971, Branzburg published a second article detailing drug use in Frankfort, Kentucky, based on interviews with several dozen users over two weeks. He was subpoenaed by the Franklin County grand jury to testify about violations of drug statutes. The Court of Appeals denied the requested writs and rejected his First Amendment claim. This Court granted certiorari. In July 1970, Paul Pappas, a television newsman-photographer, was assigned to cover civil disorders in New Bedford, Massachusetts, involving the Black Panthers. He entered Panther headquarters under an agreement not to disclose what he saw or heard inside except for an anticipated police raid, which did not occur. Two months later, he was summoned before the Bristol County grand jury but refused to answer questions about his observations inside the headquarters. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that he must appear and testify. In February 1970, Earl Caldwell, a New York Times reporter covering the Black Panther Party in San Francisco, received a subpoena to appear before a federal grand jury investigating possible violations of federal law by the group, including threats against the President. The District Court denied the motion to quash but issued a protective order. Caldwell refused to appear and was held in contempt. The Court of Appeals reversed, recognizing a qualified privilege. This Court granted certiorari and consolidated the cases.
View caseFelicia Fuentes enters a guilty plea to murder. The judge reviews the indictment, the plea colloquy, and the presentence report to confirm a factual basis exists for the conviction before imposing sentence under the state's capital-sentencing procedures.
On November 21, 1973, Troy Gregg and Floyd Allen were hitchhiking north in Florida when they were picked up by Fred Simmons and Bob Moore in their car. Their car broke down. Simmons purchased another vehicle with some of the cash he was carrying. While still in Florida, the group picked up Dennis Weaver, who rode with them to Atlanta, where he was let out about 11 p.m. A short time later the four men stopped for a rest along the highway in Gwinnett County, Georgia. The next morning the bodies of Simmons and Moore were discovered in a nearby ditch. On November 23, after reading about the shootings in an Atlanta newspaper, Weaver communicated with the Gwinnett County police and related information concerning the journey with the victims, including a description of the car. The next afternoon, Gregg and Allen, while in Simmons' car, were arrested in Asheville, North Carolina. In the search incident to the arrest a .25-caliber pistol, later shown to be that used to kill Simmons and Moore, was found in Gregg's pocket. After receiving Miranda warnings and signing a written waiver, Gregg signed a statement admitting he shot Simmons and Moore but claiming self-defense. At the guilt stage of the bifurcated trial, a medical examiner testified that Simmons died from a bullet wound in the eye and that Moore died from bullet wounds in the cheek and in the back of the head. The examiner further testified that both men had several bruises and abrasions about the face and head. Gregg testified claiming self-defense after Simmons and Moore allegedly attacked with a pipe and knife, but the jury convicted him of two counts of armed robbery and two counts of murder. At the penalty stage before the same jury, neither side presented additional evidence. The trial judge instructed the jury that it could recommend either a death sentence or a life prison sentence on each count. The judge further charged the jury that in determining the sentence it was free to consider mitigating or aggravating circumstances. The judge instructed that death could not be imposed unless the jury found beyond a reasonable doubt one of the aggravating circumstances. The jury found the first and second aggravating circumstances and returned verdicts of death on each count. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the convictions and the death sentences for murder after reviewing the record and comparing the sentences to similar cases, but it vacated the death sentences for armed robbery. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to the challenge to the death sentences under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
View caseNo. Most courts hold that due process does not require a factual basis unless the defendant asserts innocence or other special circumstances exist. When the defendant protests innocence, however, a strong factual basis in the record is necessary to ensure the plea is a voluntary and intelligent choice.
The judge may inquire of the defendant, the prosecutor, or defense counsel, or may examine the plea agreement and presentence report. The goal is to confirm that the defendant's conduct satisfies the elements of the charged offense.
The requirement protects a defendant from pleading guilty to a crime the record does not show was committed and supplies the court with information useful for imposing an appropriate sentence. It also creates a record that discourages later collateral attacks on the plea.
Yes. A court may accept a guilty plea from a defendant who maintains innocence so long as the plea is voluntary and intelligent and the record contains a strong factual basis for the conviction.
Supporting sources
…cases which it decides today. Judged by any of the standards for empirical investigation utilized in the social sciences the factual basis for the Court's premise is patently inadequate. Although in the Court's view in-custody interrogation is inherently coercive, the Court says that the spontaneous product of the coercion of…