如何评价控辩双方达成的一致协议：比较美国和加拿大的司法机关在辩诉交易中的作用

原文作者 Lisa Kerr Queens University

摘要：起始于美国的辩诉交易制度影响深远，很多国家借鉴辩诉交易制度结合本国国情，创立了属于本国的协商性司法制度。本文通过对美国辩诉交易制度和加拿大辩诉交易制度的比较，分析二者各自特点以及缺点，说明了缺点存在的原因。两种制度都需要改进和互相借鉴的需要。

关键词：辩诉交易； 辩诉协议； 司法机关

各国对辩诉交易的依赖可以引起很大的的关注，即刑事司法的管理在多大程度上受法律规则的制约。当犯罪嫌疑人、被告人认罪之后进入定罪时，并没经过对抗审判，但其实所有的保障和事实发现都需要这个过程。在美国，人们对这一问题的描述尤为充分，形成辩诉交易的因素往往更多的是与不平衡的议价能力有关，而不是实质性的法律内容。辩诉谈判的权限引起了对过度判决和监禁的恐惧，犯罪嫌疑人、被告人很可能在审判中对他们的罪行提出合理的怀疑。William Stuntz描述了法律对美国辩诉交易制度的影响比传统的朴素正义观对辩诉交易的影响更少——甚至可以说连法律的影子也没有。正如Jed Rakoff所说，辩诉交易是“秘密进行的，没有司法监督”，结果很大程度上是由检察官单独决定的。

问题是美国的现实环境在加拿大存在的程度。两种制度都依赖辩诉交易来解决绝大多数的刑事案件，这两种制度都严重依赖这项制度来提高司法效率。但是二者依然具有显著的差异。在美国联邦制度中，辩诉交易的机能失调与一种特定的检察官文化相关。20世纪70年代的量刑改革运动，有效地将量刑裁量权从法官转移到检察官手中。广泛的指导方针和强制判决的存在意味着，对控方意见几乎完全决定了判决结果。几十年来，联邦法律几乎把重点放在了犯罪行为的特征和前科上，而不是减刑因素。而加拿大的审判制度在这些方面都存在着显著的不同。就辩诉交易过程中容易产生的过度刑罚而言，这些差异有助于在交易过程中保持一个比较审慎的态度。

在某种程度上，加拿大与美国联邦制度的不同之处，至少在某些情况下，它会产生意想不到的严重后果。这一区别与司法权背离控辩双方共同达成的协议有关。加拿大法律一直很清楚的规定，法官不受“辩诉协议”的限制，更重要的是，法官可以判处背离辩诉协议的判决（即使在辩方和控方达成的协议完全符合事实和判例的情况下）。

一、加拿大司法机关在辩诉交易制度中具有更大的干预权。

加拿大最高法院在R诉安东尼·库克的判决书中的第一页上称，辩诉交易制度并没有对加拿大长期存在的规定造成冲击，因为即使在控辩双方达成协议的情况下，法官依然需要对案件的判决负责。这一判决的重点是解决相互冲突的规定，这些相互冲突的规定已成为判决偏离“辩诉协议”的适当依据，并确定了较高的偏离标准。相对于一些基层法院一直在使用的“适合性”的测试，法官莫尔达沃认为，审判法官只有在“辩诉协议”会使司法部门名誉受损或与公众利益相悖的情况下，才可以对被告施加更高的刑罚。莫达达沃遵循r·v·德鲁对公共利益的定义，他认为当“辩诉协议”的内容“明显超过一个理性的人对本案的合理预期”且会打破刑事司法系统正常运行的，法官就可以拒绝这个“辩诉协议”。

相反，大多数情况下，在美国的联邦和大多数州的司法管辖区，司法机构都不能参与辩诉交易谈判。 无论是在更严重的情况下加刑还是在特殊情况下的适度减刑，大多数美国法官没有权力干涉或规定辩诉的条款。如果辩诉交易产生了一个“规定的判决”——加拿大人称之为“辩诉协议”，即控辩双方在事实和判决之间达成一个一致的协议，那么法官无权干涉控辩双方达成的辩诉协议。他只能接受或拒绝，但不能做出不同的交易。“规定的讨价还价”或者“作为一项有约束力的建议的申辩”，被认为是美国联邦法院辩诉交易的“圣杯”。有了“规定的判决”，除非被告完全拒绝认罪，被告就可以确定将要发生的事情。鉴于法官没有权力判决被告进入不同的刑期，拒绝的动机就减少了。

美国还保留了一项“从头再来”的条款，允许双方回到原来的状态。法院不是必须接受“规定的判决”，但如果法院不同意，被告将被允许从辩诉协议中退出。值得注意的是,安东尼·库克说：“一个量刑法官拒绝“辩诉协议”应该考虑是否允许被告撤回认罪,但并不至于需要宣布一个明确的规则，即被告如果没有获得辩诉协议中的承诺就可以退出辩诉交易并进入庭审程序。

当我们将加拿大的情况和美国比较时，颇具一些讽刺意味。“安东尼·库克案”被认为是控方的胜利，因为案件处在一个法官可以正当的偏离“辩诉协议”，从而强制执行更高的判决的高标准情况下。相比之下，美国改革者的假设是，更大的司法介入将不可避免地推动更宽大的判决。像拉科夫这样的批评家提出：一些司法管辖区，特别是康涅狄格州和佛罗里达州，已经开始尝试让法官参与辩诉交易过程。而在加拿大，我们更注重阐明规则，以确保法官不会以更严重的刑罚来修改“联合判决”。但无论控辩双方之间提出的协议的刑罚程度如何，我们都不能质疑法官有权行使刑罚。

二、美国：检察文化与比例原则的缺位

对美国司法角色的严格限制往往会产生消极性的影响，这在一定程度上需要由检察文化来解释。目前美国辩诉交易制度的障碍是从判决决定的评论中获取的。这些评论的作者是约翰·格里森，他是美国联邦地区法官，因为对辩诉交易的广泛知识和批判性观点以及美国联邦量刑指南的法律和政策而闻名。前联邦检察官格里森(Gleeson)法官描述了检察官的日常行为，他们以不同寻常的过度量刑来威胁被告，以确保被告与检察官的辩诉协议达成一致。为了迫使被告认罪，检察官有时还强迫合作，他们通常会以极端苛刻、强制性的判决来威胁被告，但是没有人（甚至检察官自己）认为这份判决是合适的。而且，为了向被告证明这些威胁是真实的，检察官坚持在受到威胁的被告拒绝认罪时实施不公正的惩罚。格雷森法官的这段冗长的意见包含了一份全面的过去检察官以重罪起诉被告人的历史记录，这个举措会大幅度地增加已经足够严厉的最低刑期。正如格里森法官所描述的，联邦检察官在这个问题上行使的自由裁量权，不是出于一个合法的因素（如案件中的道德可耻性），而是根据被告是否认罪。检察官的此种行为会产生严重的后果：先前的重罪信息不只是修改了判决结果，通过将强制的最低刑罚提高一倍，有时甚至强制要求被告人在监狱中生活，这样他们的判决结果相当于原先的两倍。政府利用他们的有罪抗辩，从而制造出了如此严重的判决，使被告人感到无法呼吸。先前的重罪信息在帮助把联邦刑事审判列入“危险物种”方面发挥了关键作用。

辩诉交易不公正的部分原因是缺乏司法监督。如上所述，更大的问题可能是对非死刑判决的比例限制。在加拿大，一名检察官威胁犯罪嫌疑人、被告人一项严重与犯罪行为不相称的判决，以确保其进行有罪答辩，很可能会触犯滥用程序罪。在美国宪法下，完全不成比例的监禁几乎是不存在的。但对辩诉交易的司法监督似乎没有达到完全解决美国问题的水平。

关于是否和如何授权法官进行辩诉交易，这两个系统都有一些东西可以互相学习。长期以来，美国司法管辖区一直在更深刻地认识到，在判决法官面前，那些构成辩诉交易的因素是多么的不为人所知，这使得他们对任何被提议的判决的干涉都可能是非法的。但在“安东尼·库克案”中，他被判两年缓刑，而不是“辩诉协议”中的18个月的刑期，似乎并没有体现这个观点。正如莫达弗法官说的，安东尼·库克案的判决法官犯了一种“修补”的罪，这是一种对辩诉交易的等价交换不太重视的方式，即被告放弃审判的权利以换取判决的确定性，以及刑事司法系统只能在法庭上达成的协议，在很大程度上受到法庭的尊重。刑事司法系统只有当控辩双方达成的协议在法庭上得到充分的尊重，才能发挥作用。因此，加拿大最高法院改变了法官的量刑决定，使其与“辩诉协议”一致。在辩护人完全同意的情况下，量刑法官的工作并不是分析法庭是否要在确认了事实的情况下，作出与“辩诉协议”同样的判决。

三、结语

格里森法官和其他许多人提出的批评表明，美国改革家们对量刑权利从独立的联邦法官转变到更政治化的公诉人手中的抱怨是正确的。加拿大的审判文化抵制了司法角色的侵蚀，是非常正确的。

外文文献出处：Lisa Kerr, Judging a Joint Submission: Comparing the U.S. and Canada on the Judicial Role in Plea Bargaining [J]. Criminal Reports 7,2016

附外文文献原文

32 CR-ART 22

Criminal Reports (Articles) 7th Series

2016

Judging a Joint Submission: Comparing the U.S. and Canada on the Judicial Role in Plea Bargaining

LISA KERR*

copy; Thomson Reuters Canada Limited or its Licensors (excluding individual court documents). All rights reserved.

Reliance on plea bargaining can raise serious concerns about the extent to which the administration of criminal justice is governed by legal rule. When convictions are entered following a plea there is no adversarial trial process with all the safeguards and fact-finding that such a process entails. It has been especially well documented in the United States that the factors that shape a plea often have more to do with imbalanced bargaining power than substantive legal content. The power dynamics of plea negotiations raise the spectre of both excessive sentences and the imprisonment of defendants who could well have raised a reasonable doubt about their guilt at trial. William Stuntz described how the laws effect on U.S.-style plea bargaining is even less than conventional wisdom presumes — even the shadow of law is scarcely felt. 1 As Jed Rakoff put it, plea bargaining happens 'behind closed doors and with no judicial oversight. The outcome is very largely determined by the prosecutor alone.' 2

The question is the extent to which this U.S. reality appears in Canada. Both systems rely on plea bargaining to resolve the vast majority of criminal cases, suggesting that both systems are heavily dependent on this efficiency-enhancing practice. 3 But important differences abound. In the U.S. federal system, the dysfunctions of plea bargaining are connected to a particular prosecutorial culture, combined with a sentencing reform movement, sourced in the 1970s, which effectively transferred sentencing discretion from judges to prosecutors. 4 The presence of extensive guideline and mandatory sentencing means that charging decisions almost wholly determine sentence, and for severa

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32 CR-ART 22

Criminal Reports (Articles) 7th Series

2016

Judging a Joint Submission: Comparing the U.S. and Canada on the Judicial Role in Plea Bargaining

Lisa Kerr *

copy; Thomson Reuters Canada Limited or its Licensors (excluding individual court documents). All rights reserved.

Reliance on plea bargaining can raise serious concerns about the extent to which the administration of criminal justice is governed by legal rule. When convictions are entered following a plea there is no adversarial trial process with all the safeguards and fact-finding that such a process entails. It has been especially well documented in the United States that the factors that shape a plea often have more to do with imbalanced bargaining power than substantive legal content. The power dynamics of plea negotiations raise the spectre of both excessive sentences and the imprisonment of defendants who could well have raised a reasonable doubt about their guilt at trial. William Stuntz described how the laws effect on U.S.-style plea bargaining is even less than conventional wisdom presumes — even the shadow of law is scarcely felt. 1 As Jed Rakoff put it, plea bargaining happens 'behind closed doors and with no judicial oversight. The outcome is very largely determined by the prosecutor alone.' 2

The question is the extent to which this U.S. reality appears in Canada. Both systems rely on plea bargaining to resolve the vast majority of criminal cases, suggesting that both systems are heavily dependent on this efficiency-enhancing practice. 3 But important differences abound. In the U.S. federal system, the dysfunctions of plea bargaining are connected to a particular prosecutorial culture, combined with a sentencing reform movement, sourced in the 1970s, which effectively transferred sentencing discretion from judges to prosecutors. 4 The presence of extensive guideline and mandatory sentencing means that charging decisions almost wholly determine sentence, and for several decades the federal law has mandated near exclusive focus on the features of an offence and prior criminal conduct, rather than mitigating factors. 5 The Canadian sentencing system is significantly different on each of these fronts. These differences have helped to sustain comparative moderation in terms of the severity of sentences that can arise generally and from plea bargaining.

In one respect, however, Canada is different than the U.S. federal system in a way that can generate unexpected severity in at least some cases. The difference has to do with the judicial power to depart from a sentence that is jointly recommended by the defence and the prosecution. Canadian law has long been clear that judges are not bound by a joint sentencing submission and, more significantly, that a judge can impose a sentence that departs from the joint submission (even where the defence and prosecution are entirely ad idem as to facts and sentence). 6

Canada: Greater Judicial Power to Intervene

The Supreme Court of Canada decision in R v. Anthony-Cook, reported above at p. 1, does not challenge the longstanding rule that Canadian judges are ultimately responsible for imposing sentence, even in the face of agreement between counsel. 7 The decision focuses on resolving the conflicting standards that had emerged as to the proper basis for judicial

departure from a joint submission, and settles on a high standard for departure. Rather than a test of mere 'fitness' that some lower courts had been employing, Justice Moldaver, writing for the court, holds that trial judges can impose a higher sentence only where the proposed sentence would bring the administration of justice into disrepute or is otherwise contrary to the public interest. 8 Moldaver J. follows the definition of the public interest from R. v. Druken, which held that judges can reject a proposed sentence that is so 'markedly out of line with the expectations of reasonable persons aware of the circumstances of the case that they would view it as a break down in the proper functioning of the criminal justice system.' 9

By contrast, most U.S. judges have no power to interfere with or dictate the terms of a plea, whether in the direction of greater severity ('jumping') or moderation ('undercutting'). In the U.S. federal system and most state jurisdictions, the judiciary is precluded from participating in plea bargain negotiations. 10 Where a plea bargain generates a 'stipulated sentence' — what Canadians would call a 'joint submission' that marks agreement between defence and prosecution as to both facts and sentence — the overseeing judge has no power to interfere with the terms of the plea. She can only accept or reject, but cannot order a different bargain. 'Stipulation bargaining' — or the 'entering of a plea in return for a binding recommendation' — is considered the 'holy grail' of plea bargaining in U.S. federal court. 11 Arm

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