1 The term “plea bargaining” is not a perfect translation for the consensual resolution of criminal cases in Germany, because the notion of a “plea” is alien to German criminal procedure. In German, the terms Verständigung (“understanding”) and Absprachen (“bargains”) are used most frequently for negotiations and agreements on the outcome of the criminal process. Because plea bargaining is the term most familiar to Anglo-American lawyers, we sometimes use it in this article when we refer to procedures by which defendants receive concessions in exchange for confessing to a crime.Google Scholar

2 Bundesgerichtshof [BGH - Federal Court of Justice], Case No. 4 StR 240/97, 43 ENTSCHEIDUNGEN DES Bundesgerichtshofes in Strafsachen [BGHSt] 195, para. 8 (Aug. 28, 1997), http://www.hrr-strafrecht.de/hrr/4/97/4-240-97.php3?referer=db.Google Scholar

3 In submissions to the Court, the German government as well as organizations of prosecutors and defense lawyers argued that the practice was constitutional and beneficial. But one influential association of defense lawyers (Deutscher Anwaltverein) and some high court judges voiced strong criticism of the practice. Among serious scholars, critics are in the majority. See, e.g., Gunnar Duttge, Möglichkeiten eines Konsensualprozesses nach deutschem Strafprozessrecht, 115 Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft [ZStW] 539 (2003); Uwe Murmann, Reform ohne Wiederkehr? Die gesetzliche Regelung der Absprachen im Strafverfahren, 10 Zeitschrift für internationale Strafrechtsdogmatik [ZIS] 526 (2009); Thomas Rönnau, Die Absprache im Strafprozeß (1990); Bernd Schünemann, Die Absprachen im Strafverfahren, in Festschrift für Peter Riess 525 (Ernst-Walter Hanack et al. eds., 2002); Carl-Friedrich Stuckenberg, § 257c Marginal Notes 1–19, in Löwe/Rosenberg: Die Strafprozeßordnung und das Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz (Volker Erb et al. eds., 26th ed. 2013); Edda Weßlau, Absprachen in Strafverfahren, 116 Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft [ZStW] 150 (2004).Google Scholar

4 Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG – Federal Constitutional Court], Case No. 2 BvR 2628/10, 2 BvR 2883/10, 2 BvR 2155/11, 2013 Neue Juristische Wochenschrift [NJW] 1058, paras. 67, 95–96, 104–05 (Mar. 19, 2013) [hereinafter Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013].Google Scholar

5 Id. para. 121.Google Scholar

6 Langbein, John, Land Without Plea Bargaining: How the Germans Do It, 78 Mich. L. Rev. 204, 204 (1979).Google Scholar

7 See Dubber, Markus Dirk, American Plea Bargains, German Lay Judges, and the Crisis of Criminal Procedure, 49 Stan. L. Rev. 547, 567–69 (1997) (contesting the argument that German criminal trials are more efficient, at least as concerns trials in the 1990s).Google Scholar

8 See Strafprozessordnung [StPO][Code of Criminal Procedure], Feb. 1, 1877, Reichsgesetzblatt [RGBl.] 253, as amended, § 147.Google Scholar

9 See id. § 160, para. 2.Google Scholar

10 See id. § 238, para. 1. The parties retain the right to ask questions of witnesses and expert witnesses. Id. § 240, para. 2.Google Scholar

11 Lay judges, to the extent they participate at all, sit and deliberate together with professional judges. Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz [GVG][Judicature Act], Jan. 27, 1877, Reichsgesetzblatt [RGBl.] 41, as amended, § 30.Google Scholar

12 For example, many road traffic violations have been decriminalized and can be sanctioned by fines through an administrative process. See John H. Langbein, Controlling Prosecutorial Discretion in Germany, 41 U. Chi. L. Rev. 439, 452 (1974).Google Scholar

13 See StPO §§ 153, 153a. Even where the suspect makes a payment—the amount of which is set by the prosecutor without an absolute statutory limit—that does not legally imply a confession of guilt, and the presumption of innocence in favor of the suspect remains unaffected. Id. Google Scholar

14 See StPO §§ 407 et seq. In recent years, more offenders have been convicted by penal order than by regular trial. In 2012, German prosecutors dealt with approximately 4.5 million cases with known suspects. Around 77% of these cases were dismissed for lack of sufficient evidence or for policy reasons. Of the remaining cases, 52% were disposed of by penal order, and in 48% an indictment was filed. See Staatsanwaltschaften - Fachserie 10 Reihe 2.6, Statistisches Bundesamt, 2012, available at: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Rechtspflege/GerichtePersonal/Staatsanwaltschaften.html.Google Scholar

15 Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 748–49 (1970). Although the Supreme Court has not imposed any significant constitutional constraints on plea bargaining, a number of American legal scholars have argued that such constraints are both possible and necessary. E.g., Alschuler, Albert W., Implementing the Criminal Defendant's Right to Trial, 50 U. Chi. L. Rev. 931, 963 (1983); Russell D. Covey, Plea Bargaining After Lafler and Frye, 51 Duq. L. Rev. 595, 597, 599–600 (2013); Richard L. Lippke, Plea Bargaining in the Shadow of the Constitution, 51 Duq. L. Rev. 709, 723–31 (2013).Google Scholar

16 See StPO § 244, para. 2.Google Scholar

17 See StPO § 261 (requiring the court to base its conclusion exclusively on the evidence taken at the trial).Google Scholar

18 BGH, Case No. 4 StR 240/97 at para. 26.Google Scholar

19 Weigend, Thomas, The Decay of the Inquisitorial Ideal: Plea Bargaining Invades German Criminal Procedure, in Crime, Procedure and Evidence in a Comparative and International Context 39, 44 (John Jackson et al. eds., 2008).Google Scholar

20 Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at paras. 53–54 (translating done by authors).Google Scholar

21 Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland [Grundgesetz] [GG] [Basic Law], May 23, 1949, BGBl., arts. 1(1), 2(1).Google Scholar

22 Id. art. 20(3).Google Scholar

23 Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 paras. 53–54.Google Scholar

24 See id. para. 3.Google Scholar

25 The increase of white-collar crime cases was partly caused by an expansion of criminal legislation covering conduct that had theretofore not been prohibited at all or had been regulated by administrative law. Cf. Rainer Hamm, Wie muss das Strafrecht beschaffen sein, damit wir uns wieder ein Legalitätsprinzip leisten können?, in Prozessuales Denken als Innovationsanreiz für das materielle Strafrecht 1 (Mark Pieth & Kurt Seelmann eds., 2006); Hans Theile, Strafrechtliche Hypertrophie und ihre Folgen, 93 Monatsschrift für Kriminologie und Strafrechtsreform 147, 149–50 (2010).Google Scholar

26 See Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at para. 3. The relationship between the complexity of white-collar crime prosecution and the greater need for plea bargaining has been noted in the American context as well. See, e.g., Darryl K. Brown, The Perverse Effects of Efficiency in Criminal Process, 100 Va. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2014).Google Scholar

27 See Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at para. 3; Ernst-Walter Hanack, Vereinbarungen im Strafprozeß, ein besseres Mittel zur Bewältigung von Großverfahren?, 7 Strafverteidiger [StV] 500 (1987); Volker Krey & Oliver Windgätter, The Untenable Situation of German Criminal Law: Against Quantitative Overloading, Qualitative Overcharging, and the Overexpansion of Criminal Justice, 13 German L.J. 579, 586–92 (2012).Google Scholar

28 Both the number of cases brought before the courts and the number of prosecutors and judges have remained at about the same level for the last fifteen years. See Justizgeschäftsstatistik: Geschäftsentwicklung bei Gerichten und Staatsanwaltschaften seit 1995, Statistisches Bundesamt, Dec. 2012, at 21, available at https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Rechtspflege/GerichtePersonal/GeschaeftsentwicklungGerichtStaatsanwaltPDF_5242001.pdf?__blob=publicationFile; Ausgewählte Zahlen für die Rechtspflege Statistisches Bundesamt, 2012, at 15, available at https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Rechtspflege/Querschnitt/RechtspflegeAusgewaehlteZahlen.html; but cf. Regina E. Rauxloh, Formalization of Plea Bargaining in Germany: Will the New Legislation Be Able to Square the Circle?, 34 Fordham Int'l L.J. 296, 298–99 (2011) (stating that the duration and complexity of proceedings have likely increased).Google Scholar

29 See Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at para. 41 (suggesting, without providing a reference, that quantitative measures of performance for judges has pushed them to dispose of cases more efficiently); see also Shawn Boyne, Is the Journey From the In-Box to the Out-Box a Straight Line? The Drive for Efficiency and the Prosecution of Low-Level Criminality in Germany, in The Prosecutor in Transnational Perspective 37, 46–47, 53 (Erik Luna & Marianne Wade eds., 2012) (noting that over the last two decades, supervisors have relied increasingly on case-processing statistics to measure prosecutorial performance and that this has forced prosecutors to work more efficiently).Google Scholar

30 See Stuckenberg, Carl-Friedrich, Zur Verfassungsmäßigkeit der Verständigung im Strafverfahren, Zeitschrift für internationale Strafrechtsdogmatik [ZIS] 212, 214 (2013); see also Brown, supra note 26, at 27 (describing the allure of measurable outputs such as case dispositions, as opposed to criminal justice values that cannot be measured, such as democratic participation and due process).Google Scholar

31 Under German law, the prosecution can challenge the sentence on appeal. See StPO § 296, para. 1.Google Scholar

32 Rauxloh, supra note 29, at 316.Google Scholar

33 See Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG – Federal Constitutional Court], Case No. 2 BvR 1133/86, 1987 Neue Juristische Wochenschrift [NJW] 2662 (Jan. 27 1987), http://dejure.org/dienste/vernetzung/rechtsprechung?Text=2+BvR+1133/86.Google Scholar

34 The Federal Court of Justice is the highest court of appeals for criminal cases. Defendants can, however, challenge the BGH's decisions on constitutional grounds by filing a complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court.Google Scholar

35 See BGH, Case No. 4 StR 240/97; Stephen Thaman, Comparative Criminal Procedure, 145–50 (2002) (translating and publishing the decision in English).Google Scholar

36 Thaman, supra note 35, at 145.Google Scholar

37 Id. at 149–50. The Court elaborated: “Such circumstances could, for instance, be that the act turns out to be a felony instead of a less serious offense due to new facts or evidence … or that serious prior convictions of the defendant were unknown.” Id. at 150.Google Scholar

38 See Weigend, Thomas“ Der BGH vor der Herausforderung der Absprachenpraxis, in 50 Jahre Bundesgerichtshof: Festgabe aus der Wissenschaft IV 1011, 1022 (Claus Wilhelm Canaris et al eds., 2000).Google Scholar

39 See Bundesgerichtshof [BGH - Federal Court of Justice], Case No. GSSt 1/04, 50 Entscheidungen des Bundesgerichtshofes in Strafsachen [BGHSt] 40, paras. 63–64 (Mar. 3, 2005).Google Scholar

40 See Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG – Federal Constitutional Court], Case No. 2 BvL 8/77, 49 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts [BVerfGE] 89, paras. 76–79 (Aug. 8, 1978).Google Scholar

41 See Deutscher Bundestag: Drucksachen [BT] 16/09 (Ger.), available at: http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/16/123/1612310.pdf (explaining the Federal government's official reasons for the new legislation).Google Scholar

42 StPO § 257b.Google Scholar

43 StPO § 244, para. 2. According to this section, the court is responsible for extending the trial to all facts and pieces of evidence necessary to establish the truth.Google Scholar

44 That is, the sentence of the court including a decree suspending a prison sentence or permitting the defendant to pay a fine in installments.Google Scholar

45 This could include dismissal of one or more factually separate crimes by the court.Google Scholar

46 According to the commentary of the Ministry of Justice, “conduct of the participants” refers to any motion or abstention from a motion, as well as to a confession made in court. See Gesetzentwurf, Mar. 18, 2009, Deutscher Bundestag: Drucksachen [BT] 16/12310 at 13, available at: http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/16/123/1612310.pdf.Google Scholar

47 The understanding shall not concern the charges of which the defendant is to be convicted (e.g., if the facts indicate that the defendant committed a robbery, there cannot be an understanding that he be convicted only of simple larceny).Google Scholar

48 See Strafgesetzbuch [StGP] [Penal Code], May 15, 1871, Reichsgesetzblatt [RGBl.] 127, as amended, §§ 63, 64 (including commitment to a psychiatric hospital or to an institution for alcoholics and drug addicts).Google Scholar

49 As Subsection 4 indicates, an understanding that has been agreed upon is, in principle, binding upon the court.Google Scholar

50 By “prognosis,” the legislature probably means the proposed sentence range.Google Scholar

51 The translation as well as our insertions and annotations are not official.Google Scholar

52 This is in contrast to rules in a number of other jurisdictions, such as Italy and the United States, where judges are generally prohibited from participating in plea negotiations, and negotiations are conducted exclusively between the parties. See Maike Fromann, Regulating Plea-Bargaining in Germany: Can the Italian Approach Serve as a Model to Guarantee the Independence of German Judges?, 5 Hanse L. Rev. 197, 204 (2009); Jenia Iontcheva Turner & Thomas Weigend, Negotiated Justice, in International Criminal Procedure: Principles and Rules 1375, 1403–04 (Göran Sluiter et al. eds., 2013).Google Scholar

53 See StPO § 257c, para. 4, sentence 4 (according to the wording of this sentence, however, evidence derived from the defendant's confession is admissible); see also Carl-Friedrich Stuckenberg, § 257c Marginal Note 68, in 6/2 Löwe/Rosenberg: Die Strafprozeßordnung und das Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz (Volker Erb et al. eds., 26th ed. 2013); but see Petra Velten, § 257c Marginal Note 51, in 5 Systematischer Kommentar Strafprozessordnung (Jürgen Wolter ed., 4th ed. 2012) (convincingly arguing in favor of excluding derivative evidence for reasons of fairness).Google Scholar

54 See StPO § 257c, para. 5.Google Scholar

55 See StPO § 302, para. 1, sentence 2.Google Scholar

56 The study was conducted in 2012 and surveyed 190 criminal court judges from the German state Nordrhein-Westfalen. Of these, 117 were judges in a local court (Schöffengericht), and seventy-three were presiding judges of a district court criminal chamber (Strafkammer). The study also surveyed sixty-eight prosecutors and seventy-six criminal defense attorneys. Karsten Altenhain, Frank Dietmeier & Markus May, Die Praxis der Absprachen in Strafverfahren 18–24 (2013).Google Scholar

57 Id. at 31.Google Scholar

58 Id. at 36–37, 146–47. More than a quarter of the respondents said that they always concluded deals informally. Id. Google Scholar

59 Id. at 144.Google Scholar

60 Id. at 93. Whereas judges said that this had occurred in 38% of their cases, defense lawyers thought that the court had regarded a merely formal “confession” as sufficient in 68% of their cases. Similarly, 72% of the judges declared that they always or frequently check the credibility of the confession before passing judgment, while only 29% of defense lawyers thought that the judges did so. Id. at 99. The difference may be explained by the fact that many judges said that they check the accuracy of the defendant's confession by comparing it with the contents of the prosecution file. Id. at 100.Google Scholar

61 Id. at 77–78.Google Scholar

62 Id. at 118, 123.Google Scholar

63 Id. at 130–31.Google Scholar

64 Fifty-five percent of the defense lawyers polled in the study said that there had been cases where the “sanction scissors” made the defendant confess although his lawyer was not convinced that the confession was accurate. Thirty-five percent of the lawyers said that this happened “frequently” or “sometimes.” Id. at 134.Google Scholar

65 Id. at 111–13. Thirty-one percent of prosecutors said that they had accepted a sanction they deemed too mild, and 30% of defense lawyers said that their client had accepted a sentence that was too severe.Google Scholar

66 See, e.g., Karsten Altenhain et al., Die Praxis der Absprachen in Wirtschaftsstrafverfahren (2007); Raimund Hassemer & Gabriele Hippler, Informelle Absprachen In der Praxis des deutschen Strafverfahrens, 8 Strafverteidiger [SvT] 360 (1986); Jenia lontcheva Turner, Judicial Participation in Plea Negotiations: A Comparative View, 54 Am. J. Comp. L. 199, 217–22 (2006).Google Scholar

67 The first two complainants argued that the trial court had violated the constitution by failing to inform them that the court is free to deviate from the negotiated sentence if it concludes that it has overlooked significant legal or factual circumstances bearing on the defendant's culpability (§ 257c (5)). See Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at para. 31; see also StPO § 257c, para. 5. Although the trial court did not ultimately deviate from the promised sentence, the Constitutional Court held that the failure to give the defendants the StPO §257c(5) warning violated their right to a fair trial and their privilege against self-incrimination, and remanded the case to the appellate court for a determination whether this prejudiced the defendants. See Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at para. 124.Google Scholar

68 See Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at para. 67.Google Scholar

69 See StPO § 243, para. 4.Google Scholar

70 See StPO § 273, para. 1a.Google Scholar

71 See StPO § 267, para. 3, sentence 5.Google Scholar

72 See StPO § 257c, para. 5.Google Scholar

73 See StPO § 302, para. 1, sentence 2.Google Scholar

74 Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at para. 97.Google Scholar

75 According to StPO § 337, a judgment must be reversed if it has been based on a procedural fault.Google Scholar

76 Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at paras. 76–78. The Court even indicates that judges who put on record an absence of negotiations where such negotiations indeed took place behind closed doors would commit the criminal offense of falsifying official records. Id. para. 78.Google Scholar

77 Id. para. 79. Although StPO § 257c (2), sentence 1, limits the contents of bargains to “acts concerning the current proceedings,” prosecutors also have authority to negotiate with suspects and their lawyers, and to dismiss cases on the basis of such negotiations. See StPO § 160a.Google Scholar

78 Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at para. 93.Google Scholar

79 See id. para. 121.Google Scholar

80 See id. para. 104.Google Scholar

81 See id. para. 105.Google Scholar

82 See id. para. 70.Google Scholar

83 See id. para. 110.Google Scholar

84 Such a superficial review of the confession was deemed sufficient by the Federal Supreme Court. See BGH, Case No. GSSt 1/04 at 49.Google Scholar

85 See StPO § 249, para. 2.Google Scholar

86 Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at para. 72. For a similar assessment, see Werner Beulke & Hannah Stoffer, Bewährung für den Deal?, 68 Juristenzeitung [JZ] 662, 665 (2013).Google Scholar

87 Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at para. 130.Google Scholar

88 Arguably, the right to an impartial judge—guaranteed under both German constitutional law and the European Convention on Human Rights—means that the defendant must have access to a judge who has not yet formed an opinion on the defendant's guilt. See De Cubber v. Belgium, ECHR App. No. 9186/80, 1984 Eur. Ct. H.R. 14, para. 29 (finding that a Belgian investigating judge cannot later be the trial judge in the same case); Hauschildt v. Denmark, ECHR App. No. 10486/83, 1989 Eur. Ct. H.R. 7, paras. 50–52 (finding that a judge participating in pretrial proceedings cannot be the trial judge when he had made decisions based on a “particularly confirmed suspicion” against the suspect before trial); but see Saraiva de Carvalho v. Portugal, ECHR App. No. 15651/89, 286-B Eur. Ct. H.R. (ser. A) paras. 37–39 (1994) (finding that a judge making preliminary decisions before trial can be the trial judge in the same case).Google Scholar

89 According to StPO §§ 395–402, victims of certain crimes against the person have the right to join the public prosecution as supplementary prosecutors, which gives them the right to participate at the trial in much the same way as the prosecutor.Google Scholar

90 See StPO § 400, paragraph 1, which accords Nebenkläger the right to appeal an acquittal but no right to file an appeal in order to have a more severe sentence imposed upon a convicted defendant.Google Scholar

91 Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at para. 104.Google Scholar

92 According to StPO § 160, paragraph 2, the prosecutor shall collect both incriminating and exonerating evidence.Google Scholar

93 A similar solution exists in Italy. See Arts. 438–42 Codice di procedura penale [C.p.p.] (It.).Google Scholar

94 The first judgments subsequent to the verdict of the Federal Constitutional Court demonstrate that the Federal Court of Justice is willing to make use of the small loopholes left by the Constitutional Court. See BGH, Case No. X ZR 130/12, Sept. 3, 2013, 2013 Strafverteidiger [StV] 740 (2013) (failing by the trial court to document in the trial record whether negotiations took place is not reversible error).Google Scholar

95 For a similar assessment, see Christoph Knauer, Die Entscheidung des BVerfG zur strafprozessualen Verständigung, 2013 Neue Zeitschrift für Strafrecht [NstZ] 433, 436 (2013).Google Scholar

96 For arguments that the United States Supreme Court should infer limits on plea bargaining from the United States Constitution, see, for example, Alschuler, supra note 15; Covey, supra note 15, at 595, 597, 599–600; Lippke, supra note 15.Google Scholar

97 See Brady, 397 U.S. at 753–55 (finding that if competent counsel is present, a plea deal is reached after the defendant's codefendant, and the codefendant determines to plead guilty and is available to testify against the defendant, then a guilty plea by the defendant is not offered involuntarily).Google Scholar

98 Id. at 755.Google Scholar

99 See, e.g., Albert W. Alschuler, Lafler and Frye: Two Small Band-Aids for a Festering Wound, 51 Duq. L. Rev. 673, 678–81 (2013); Rachel E. Barkow, Separation of Powers and the Criminal Law, 58 Stan. L. Rev. 989, 1034, 1047–49 (2006); Russell Covey, Fixed Justice: Reforming Plea Bargaining With Plea-Based Ceilings, 82 Tul. L. Rev. 1237, 1281–1285 (2008); Oren Gazal-Ayal, Partial Ban on Plea Bargains, 27 Cardozo L. Rev. 2295, 2297–2307 (2006).Google Scholar

100 See, e.g., United States v. Giannattasio, 979 F.2d 98, 100 (7th Cir. 1992); Inmates of Attica Corr. Facility v. Rockefeller, 477 F.2d 375, 379–81 (2d Cir. 1973).Google Scholar

101 The German principle of legality—or mandatory prosecution—demands that prosecutors file charges where sufficient evidence exists. See StPO § 170, para. 1. This principle applies in practice to serious felonies.Google Scholar

102 See Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 362–65 (1978). “Charge bargaining” plays a much greater role in the U.S. than in Germany because U.S. courts generally cannot convict a defendant of charges other than those filed by the prosecutor. In Germany, by contrast, the trial court may convict the defendant of lesser or more serious crimes than those charged, as long as the court sticks to the facts underlying the indictment and gives the defendant proper warning. See StPO § 265.Google Scholar

103 See, e.g., Ronald F. Wright & Rodney L. Engen, The Effects of Depth and Distance in a Criminal Code on Charging, Sentencing, and Prosecutor Power, 84 N.C. L. Rev. 1935, 1948–50 (2006).Google Scholar

104 Turner, supra note 66, at 212–23.Google Scholar

105 See North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 38 (1970) (finding that equivocal guilty pleas are acceptable when there is strong factual evidence supporting guilt). For a German reaction, see Andreas Ransiek, Zur Urteilsabsprache im Strafprozess: ein amerikanischer Fall, 2008 Zeitschrift für internationale Strafrechtsdogmatik [ZIS] 116 (2008).Google Scholar

106 Turner, supra note 66, at 212–23.Google Scholar

107 See, e.g., Lippke, supra note 15, at 720–21.Google Scholar

108 See Ruiz v. United States, 536 U.S. 622 (2002) (holding that a guilty plea may be informed even when the prosecution has failed to disclose evidence that serves to impeach the credibility of prosecution witnesses).Google Scholar

109 See Iowa v. Tovar, 541 U.S. 77 (2004). In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the court must inform the defendant “of the nature of the charges against him, of his right to be counseled regarding his plea, and of the range of allowable punishments attendant upon the entry of a guilty plea” but does not need to:Google Scholar

110 According to StPO § 140, a defendant must be represented (or, in German understanding, “assisted”) by counsel in several situations: If he has been charged with a serious crime with a mandatory minimum of one year imprisonment (Verbrechen); if he is held in pretrial detention; if he is for personal reasons unable to properly conduct his own defense; or if he is faced with serious or complicated charges. If a defendant faces a reasonable risk of being sentenced to imprisonment for one year or more, German courts normally deem the charges “serious” and appoint counsel. See Lutz Meyer-Goßner, Strafprozessordnung Kommentar § 140 marginal n. 23 (56th ed. 2013). In the cases covered by StPO § 140, the defendant cannot waive the right to counsel (notwendige Verteidigung or “necessary defense counsel”).Google Scholar

111 See StPO § 302, para. 1; cf. Judgment of Mar. 19, 2013 at paras. 67, 76, 78, 94–95.Google Scholar

112 See, e.g., United States v. Toth, 668 F.3d 374, 379 (6th Cir. 2012); Keller v. U.S., 657 F.3d 675, 681–82 (7th Cir. 2011); see generally Nancy King & Michael O'Neill, Appeal Waivers and the Future of Sentencing Policy, 55 Duke L. J. 209 (2005).Google Scholar

113 A few states have begun enacting rules requiring that plea offers be placed on the record. See, e.g., Missouri v. Frye, 132 S. Ct. 1399, 1409 (2012) (discussing rules in Arizona and New Jersey requiring that plea offers be placed on the record).Google Scholar

114 See Covey, supra note 15, at 595, 597, 599–600; Lippke, supra note 15, at 709; Wesley MacNeil Oliver, The Indirect Potential of Lafler and Frye, 51 Duq. L. Rev. 633, 633–45 (2013); but see Albert W. Alschuler, Lafler and Frye: Two Small Band-Aids for a Festering Wound, 51 Duq. L. Rev. 673, 678–81(2013); Darryl K. Brown, Lafler, Frye, and Our Still-Unregulated Plea Bargaining System, 25 Fed. Sent. R. 131 (2012); Bruce A. Green, The Right to Plea Bargain with Competent Counsel After Cooper and Frye: Is the Supreme Court Making the Ordinary Criminal Process “Too Long, Too Expensive, and Unpredictable … in Pursuit of Perfect Justice”?, 51 Duq. L. Rev. 735, 757 (2013).Google Scholar

115 Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 366–375 (2010).Google Scholar

116 Lafler v. Cooper, 132 S. Ct. 1376, 1385–87 (2012).Google Scholar

117 Missouri v. Frye, 132 S. Ct. 1399, 1408–10 (2012).Google Scholar

118 Lafler, 132 S. Ct. at 1391 (Scalia, J., dissenting).Google Scholar

119 In Lafler, the dissent claimed that German law requires prosecutors to charge all prosecutable offenses, “which is typically incompatible with the practice of charge-bargaining,” and goes on to praise Germany for entertaining “an admirable belief that the law is the law, and those who break it should pay the penalty provided.” Id. at 1397. The dissenting Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court might have benefited from a more thorough and up-to-date analysis of how German courts have regulated plea bargaining.Google Scholar

120 See, e.g., Stephanos Bibas, Transparency and Participation in Criminal Procedure, 81 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 911, 915–17 (2006); Lippke, supra note 15. For a comparison of German and American constitutional principles applicable to plea bargaining, see, for example, Gerson Trüg, Lösungskonvergenzen trotz Systemdivergenzen im deutschen und US-amerikanischen Strafverfahren 104–188 (2003) and Dominik Brodowski, Die verfassungsrechtliche Legitimation des US-amerikanischen “Plea Bargaining”—Lehren für Verfahrensabsprachen nach § 257c StPO?, 124 Zeitschriftfür die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft [ZStW] 733 (2012) (recognizing some similar constitutional values, but also noting that the search for the objective truth is less important in the American constitutional tradition and that the principle of proportionate sentences is not a key constitutional value in the United States).Google Scholar