Should Alford Pleas be Inadmissible in Subsequent Civil Trials?

I’ve done several prior posts on Alford pleas (see, e.g. here). An Alford plea is a guilty plea in which a defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges that the State has sufficient evidence that could lead to a jury finding him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  As you can see from this video clip, an Alford plea is very similar to a “guilty” plea, with the defendant simply pleading guilty “pursuant to North Carolina v. Alford.” But is an Alford plea dissimilar from a guilty plea in at least one key regard? And should it be? That was the question the Supreme Court of Minnesota answered in its recent opinion in Doe 136 v. Liebsch, 872 N.W.2d 875 (Min. 2015).

In Liebsch, Ralph Liebsch entered an Alford Plea to fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct charges based upon acts allegedly committed against Jane Doe 136. 

Liebsch’s plea did not include an admission of guilt. Instead, Liebsch admitted that, “if the jury were to believe the witnesses in this case,…there’s a reasonable probability that [he] might be found guilty.” The district court clarified that Liebsch was “not admitting to the facts” supporting his guilt, but rather was admitting “there’s a reasonable likelihood that [he] might be found guilty.”

Doe subsequently “sued Liebsch in February 2011, alleging that he committed sexual battery and sexual abuse based on the conduct that gave rise to the criminal charges.” The district court deemed Liebsch’s Alford plea inadmissible at his trial, prompting Doe’s appeal.

If Liebsch had entered a guilty plea, that plea would have been clearly admissible under Minnesota Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(A). If Liebsch had entered a nolo contendere plea, that plea would have been clearly admissible under Minnesota Rule of Evidence 410. But what about an Alford plea? Liebsch claimed that the court should deem such a plea inadmissible under Minnesota Rule of Evidence 403, which states that,

The Supreme Court of Minnesota initially noted that

The question of whether evidence of an Alford plea is admissible in a subsequent trial is a matter of first impression in Minnesota. Courts in other jurisdictions have split on whether Rule 403 precludes admission of evidence of an Alford plea in a subsequent criminal trial. Compare United States v. In, No. 2:09CR00070 DS, 2010 WL 2869108, at *2 (D.Utah July 20, 2010) (admitting evidence of a conviction obtained via an Alford plea to prove past felony conviction under the felon-in-possession statute), and State v. Barkley, 144 N.C.App. 514, 551 S.E.2d 131, 137 (2001) (admitting evidence of an Alford plea to prove commission of similar crime), with United States v. Elizondo, 277 F.Supp.2d 691, 701-03 (S.D.Tex.2002) (excluding evidence of an Alford plea because it lacked probative value as to whether the defendant had knowledge of the facts establishing guilt), and United States v. Hawley, 562 F.Supp.2d 1017, 1054 (N.D.Iowa 2008) (concluding that Alford pleas of co-conspirators lacked probative value under the residual hearsay exception, Fed.R.Evid. 807, because the pleas were “not necessarily admissions of guilt or admissions to certain facts, only admissions that the government can prove certain facts”). We are unaware of any case in which a party sought admission of an Alford plea in a subsequent civil trial based on the same course of conduct as the criminal matter.

The court then rejected two arguments made by Doe:

Doe argues that evidence of Liebsch’s Alford plea would not result in prejudice because Liebsch knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently entered the plea, and he did so after consultation with counsel. Liebsch’s mental state when he entered the plea is irrelevant, however, for determining whether evidence of the Alford plea would unfairly prejudice Leibsch under Rule 403. Instead, among other things, we look to whether the “evidence will be used by the jury for an improper purpose.” Evidence that Liebsch entered an Alford plea may confuse and distract the jury, thereby causing undue prejudice, regardless of whether Liebsch entered the plea deliberately and with advice from counsel.

Doe further argues that excluding evidence of an Alford plea under Rule 403 ignores a 100–year–old practice of admitting evidence of a guilty plea in a subsequent civil case. We have held that evidence that a party has entered a guilty plea is generally admissible in a subsequent civil trial regarding the same course of conduct….But we have never stated that a district court must admit a guilty plea as evidence in a subsequent civil matter. In Wischstadt, the district court admitted evidence of a guilty plea for larceny in a subsequent slander suit based on the same conduct….We affirmed, stating that the guilty plea “was an admission that defendant spoke the words charged in the warrant.” Id. By contrast, the district court found that Liebsch’s Alford plea included no admission of facts establishing guilt, and therefore it lacked the probative value typically found in a conventional guilty plea.

As a result, the court affirmed the district court’s decision:

Here, the district court found that Liebsch’s Alford plea contained little if any probative value. Simultaneously, the district court found that there was a significant risk that the jury would be confused and Liebsch would be prejudiced if evidence of the Alford plea was admitted. On this record, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion by declining to admit Liebsch’s Alford plea under Rule 403. 

I can see both sides of this issue. On the one hand, why shouldn’t juries be able to consider an Alford plea for what it’s worth? Would it be too confusing/prejudicial to inform the jury at the civil trial that, by entering an Alford plea, Liebsch was “not admitting to the facts” supporting his guilt, but rather was admitting “there’s a reasonable likelihood that [he] might be found guilty”? And, if a defendant wants his plea inadmissible in a subsequent case, why doesn’t he simply enter a nolo contendere plea?

On the other hand, as cases such as the West Memphis 3 case make clear, an Alford plea often isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. These Alford plea is often a plea that is entered when the prosecution has a borderline case because prosecutors with stronger cases will often insist that defendants enter regular guilty pleas.

It will also be interesting to see whether this decision has collateral consequences in Minnesota. Many prosecutors don’t take Alford pleas because, inter alia, it doesn’t give victims the resolution they seek. With such pleas now also being presumptively inadmissible in subsequent civil suits by these victims, prosecutors might be even more gunshy about accepting them.

-CM