
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 19, 1995                   TAG: 9501190087
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

PLEA-BARGAIN DISCOURSE CAN BE USED IN COURT

The Supreme Court gave federal prosecutors a big victory Wednesday by ruling that statements made by criminal defendants during failed plea bargains may be used as trial evidence against them.

Federal rules of evidence generally bar use of such statements, but the court, voting 7-2 in a California case, said defendants and their lawyers may waive that prohibition.

Federal appeals courts had split on that issue.

``There is no reason to believe that allowing negotiation as to waiver of the plea-statement rules will bring plea bargaining to a grinding halt; it may well have the opposite effect,'' Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court.

``Prosecutors may be especially reluctant to negotiate without a waiver agreement during the early stages of a criminal investigation, when prosecutors are searching for leads and suspects may be willing to offer information in exchange for some form of immunity or leniency,'' Thomas said.

``If prosecutors were precluded from securing such agreements, they might well decline to enter into cooperation discussions in the first place and might never take this potential first step toward a plea bargain.''

He said Congress, in creating the evidentiary rules for federal courts, intended to allow such waivers to promote plea bargaining.

Abusive conduct by prosecutors can be dealt with, Thomas added, by ``case-by-case inquiries into whether waiver agreements are the product of fraud or coercion.''

Justices David Souter and John Paul Stevens dissented in a spirited opinion by Souter.

He said the ruling leaves ``no legitimate limit on admissibility of a defendant's plea negotiation statements beyond what the Constitution may independently impose or the traffic may bear,''

In cases of plea bargains gone sour, ``The only defendant who will not damage himself by even the most restrained candor will be the one so desperate that he might as well walk to into court and enter a naked guilty plea,'' Souter said.

In other action Wednesday, the court:

Ruled that national banks in midsize and large cities may sell annuities, as those in small towns already do.

Broadened the reach of a federal law that requires enforcement of agreements to arbitrate contract disputes.

Limited the amount of certain seeds farmers can sell to others.

by CNB