Essay Project #2
(use the hyper links to get additional information)
During the 2011 term, the United States Supreme Court recognized the reality that you read about since the midterm: most criminal cases are settled before trial in plea bargains. The role of the court, judges and formal court procedures intended to promote fairness, consistency and due process become essentially meaningless when supplanted by plea bargains. Seeing this, the Court in Missouri v. Frye and Lafler v. Cooper, held that criminal defendants have a Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel during plea negotiations.

For this project, you will review your readings in your text and read about these seminal Supreme Court decisions.
You will then write a 500-700 word essay responding to the prompt below:

Did the Supreme Court get it right when they decided that the Sixth Amendment protects criminal defendants by requiring effective assistance of counsel during plea negotiations or are the strong dissents in these cases persuasive and correct?

You are expected to consult scholarly outside sources (EC Library Criminal Justice Research Guide) and provide in text citations for facts and ideas obtained therefrom. Some recommended sources are:
SCOTUSblog for commentary: Opinion analysis: Expanding the right to effective counsel during the plea-bargaining process
New York Times for commentary: click on the link below and you will get to a page with several articles about the Supreme Court cases referenced about (Frye and Lafler) and the right to counsel in criminal cases, including the right to effective counsel during the plea bargaining process
Bloomberglaw for the primary source, the decisions themselves:
MISSOURI, PETITIONER v. GALIN E. FRYE
BLAINE LAFLER, PETITIONER v. ANTHONY COOPER
Oyez for the oral arguments:
MISSOURI v. FRYE
LAFLER v. COOPER