Adolescents are distinguished from adults as dependents in many legal aspects including voting, driving and purchasing alcohol. However, when it comes to accepting plea bargains, juvenile offenders are required to reach their own decisions, the consequence of which will be held up to adult standards. In this paper, I discuss the many cognitive and psychosocial developmental features present during the adolescent period that might hinder juvenile offenders from making a reasonable judgment for a plea bargain. I further argue that to better assist convicted adolescents, the presence of a defense attorney is not sufficient. Not only should the juvenile court allow for more time for the defendants to think about the plea bargains, the criminal justice system at large needs to reconsider whether juveniles are too young to plead guilty.
In order to examine the mature gap among adolescents from a variety of cultures. Icenogle et al. (2019) conducted an international study with 5404 participants from 11 different countries. The maturity gap refers to the developmental gap between cognitive capacity (“cold” cognition) and psychosocial maturity (“hot” cognition). Cold cognition, when translated to legal context, is mostly employed when voting or consenting to research that utilizes working memory and/or response inhibition. On the other hand, “hot” cognition is involved in driving, consuming alcohol or criminal behaviors when emotions are aroused and there is no immediate external force (like a supervisor) to regulate and control potential dangers. The result of the study confirmed previous report about the maturity gap. Despite the existence of culture specific developmental patterns, adolescents from most countries reach the capacity to make judgment and consider alternative course of actions by mid-teens while the ability to control impulse and self-restraint continues to develop into adulthood.
In addition to the cross-cultural examination, the 2019 study is also unique in that it adopted more behavioral assessments for psychosocial maturity including the “stop light game for sensation seeking, a delay discounting task for future orientation and “the tower of London” for impulse control. In previous studies, psychosocial maturity was predominately measured through self-reports whereas cognitive capacity was assessed through behavioral tasks. The maturity gap could thus very well be affected by the methodological differences with self reports leading more towards a subjective evaluation in general and behavioral assessments providing a brief snapshot in a controlled context. The finding therefore further supports the existence of a maturity gap by better aligning the evaluative methods for both hot and cold cognition.
However, the study didn’t include any forms of decision making vignettes, left alone simulation scenarios from a legal standpoint. It is therefore unclear how adolescents and juvenile offenders would actually perform when facing a plea bargain. Instead of inferring from behavioral assessment, Helm et al. (2018) chose to look directly at the mechanism behind decision making and how the process varies dependent on age. The researchers situated their study in six scenarios distinguished by the probability of conviction at trial (30% and 70%) and case type (theft or arson). Young adolescents (aged 9-17), college aged adults (aged 18-22) and post college aged adults (aged 23-60) were each randomly assigned with the presence and absence of sentence-length incentive, conviction-charge incentive and guilt and were asked to decide on a plea.
The study draws of the fuzzy-trace theory to explain why adolescents are more likely to plead guilt to crime they didn’t commit. When reaching a decision, adolescents are more likely to rely on verbatim processing, which are more superficial and surface level in contrast to gist-based processing. For instance, when comparing a certain misdemeanor conviction of one year probation with 70% chance of a felony conviction with one year probation, an individual using verbatim processing might choose the latter as the probability is comparatively lower. However, when applying gist-based processing, one would immediately focus on the qualitative difference between a felony and a misdemeanor. In general, gist-based processing is much effective in reaching a reasonable conclusion as it attends to what is most at stake, which is a skill adolescents tend to lack in general and in an emotionally charged situation in particular.
Controlled for the understanding of relevant legal procedures, the result of the study showed that the adolescent group was the most influenced when being offered a shorter probation by pleading guilty, regardless of the severity of the case (felony or misdemeanor) or guilt. College students were less influenced by the impact of sentence length yet the influence of the incentive was nevertheless present. It is worth noting that even when innocent, young adolescent and college aged adults plead guilty more often than post college adults, and this developmental difference is even more pronounced when pleading guilty would result in reduced severity of the nature of crime (pleading guilty to change a felony charge to a misdemeanor charge). The researchers also inquired participants from all three groups how important for them to not plead guilty to a crime they didn’t commit. Interestingly, adolescents held the highest level of importance to the statement, suggesting that the different pleadings are not caused by a shift in values by age but rather by the difficulty to access one’s value when making a decision through surface level processing.
The study elucidated how the current criminal justice system and the related pleading procedures are causing innocent adolescents to plead guilty as it fails to account for age specific features. While it is possible that the result of the study was influenced by its simulative nature as participants do not necessarily face the real life consequences of their plead, it is evident that adolescents are more influenced by sentence and charge bargaining and other more superficial distinctions that can occur in real life settings. The study complemented Icenogle et al. (2019) with its more direct methodology and the findings are not only important to judges, but also defense attorney in particular. Representing and consulting with adolescents who sometimes make decision that are influenced by superficial factors and in contradiction to their values, attorneys might potentially benefit from research on the unique cognitive style during adolescence.
Attending to the factor of attorney consultation, Foundation and Woolard (2018) interviewed 23 defense attorneys in an urban jurisdiction on the East Coast about the process of juvenile plea bargain, their perception of the process, how they prepared their last client and how they respond to their clients’ poor decision and finally their perceived reasons for juvenile offenders to plead guilty. The result of the study offered rich insight into a rarely studied domain. The researcher found that on average attorneys spent 46 minutes discussing plea bargains with their clients, with a wide time range from five to 156 minutes. Fifty-eight percent of the attorneys received an offer in the morning and entered into discussion on the same day. On average, each attorney were actively overseeing 46 cases at the time of the interview. The time constraints from the court and the significant caseload attorneys might be overseeing at the time resulted in most attorneys covering predominantly the following aspects when discussing a plea with juvenile clients: disposition (83.3%), charges (55.5%) and evidence (44.4%). Only 27.8% of the attorneys discussed collateral consequences which might range from placement on the sex offender registry to future job opportunities. And 61.5% of the attorneys reported that they would only cover the rights the client is waiving after they decide to accept bargain so as to save time. The intentional omission of information due to time restraint very likely influence a juvenile offender’s decision over a plea bargain. Considering abundant studies have suggested that adolescents have a rather myopic perception when it comes to legal decision, it is questionable how much of such supposition is dependent upon the level of future-oriented information disclosed from the defense attorneys.
As for the attorneys’ perceived reasons for clients to accept a plea bargain, major ones include going home and avoiding incarceration, avoiding confrontation with the witnesses, avoiding prosecution and avoiding time necessary to stand trial. Observed theme concentrated on immediate benefits and outcomes with very little discussion about future. One of the attorney described her client group in general as “not very forward thinking.” This result expanded on the study by Helm et al. (2018) by demonstrating how superficial distinction can be particular appealing in a real life courtroom when an adolescent is deprived of familial support and fearful of confrontation. The intention to plead guilty just to get it over with might have been a prevalent cause had Helm et al. inquired their participants of their decisions.
In the Foundation and Woolard (2018) study, most attorneys also mentioned the difficulties of the job when discussing applied strategies when a client is making a bad decision. Six attorneys adopted a developmentally informed structure reflection, in which they strive to maintain a balance between telling the client what they perceive as beneficial and allowing the client to choose a plea with autonomy. This very effectively connected with Icenogle et al. (2019)’s study. What attorneys termed as “pushing too hard” oftentimes are statements and explanations charged with more intense emotionality. Lacking psychosocial maturity, clients are more likely to be swayed by an explicit disagreement and/or instruction. Another five attorneys accepted the client’s decision regardless of how themselves feel about the decision if they had already thoroughly explained the situation. The final group of seven attorneys claimed that they would explicitly express their disapproval and sometimes tried to persuade their clients to change the plea. Interestingly, as the researchers noted, those who adopted a developmentally informed structure reflection on average has the least amount of legal experience whereas members of the last group had on average 15 years of practice (9 years more than the first group). The differences might be explained by the different caseloads held by attorneys at different stages of their career paths, which restrain the time allowed for a thorough reflection. The study didn’t mention the specific charge types in question, which can potentially account for different strategies. It is possible that when facing more severe charges, attorneys would make more effort, which sometimes might appear forceful, to convince their clients to make a reasonable decision. Attorneys who are younger might also receive a set of training more influenced by late research as compared to older groups. Legal consultation that is not developmentally appropriate can do more harm than good in informing juvenile offenders. Research qualitatively looking at legal training for juvenile defense attorneys can therefore shed light on the discrepancy between what is needed by the client and what is offered as skill sets to the attorneys.
Taken together the findings of the aforementioned three studies, I see the necessity of both short-term and long-term structural changes when dealing with juvenile offenders. In the short term, defense attorneys and the juvenile court need to take into account the cognitive differences and maturation gap among their client population. Defense attorneys should receive proper training that allow them interact in developmentally appropriate ways with their clients to aid the formation of an informed, intelligent and voluntary decision. As for charges, non-superficial distinction between a plea and a trial should be provided to account for adolescents’ susceptibility to surface level cues (Helm et al., 2018). The incentive to trial a juvenile in a juvenile court instead of an adult court should also be problematized as juvenile cases belong in a different court to start with and the incentive could potentially coerced a client to plea a certain way.
Additionally, the court should allow attorneys more time, particularly when the defendant is young, to discuss a plea bargain. However, this can be challenging considering that not only the court is pressuring the attorneys to reach a consensus with their clients, attorneys themselves also face other duties that might result in cognitive overload. Bear that in mind, the current legal system and academia at large may want to reevaluate an adolescent’s ability to plead guilty even at the assistance of a defense attorney. It would be interesting to see how behavioral patterns observed in the 2018 study by Helm et al. would change if an adolescent is paired with a legal consultant to investigate the effectiveness of external assistance in mitigating surface level processing. In general, more research is needed to inform a potential change of legal practices so as to ensure juvenile offenders’ ability to make legal decisions and protect their right to plead.
Work Cited:
Fountain, E. N., & Woolard, J. L. (2018). How defense attorneys consult with juvenile clients about plea bargains. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 24(2), 192-203. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/law0000158
Helm, R. K., Reyna, V. F., Franz, A. A., & Novick, R. Z. (2018). Too young to plead? risk, rationality, and plea bargaining’s innocence problem in adolescents. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 24(2), 180-191. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/law0000156
Icenogle, G., Steinberg, L., Duell, N., Chein, J., Chang, L., Chaudhary, N., Bacchini, D. (2019). Adolescents’ cognitive capacity reaches adult levels prior to their psychosocial maturity: Evidence for a “maturity gap” in a multinational, cross-sectional sample. Law and Human Behavior, 43(1), 69-85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000315
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