OBJECTIVE In guilty plea hearings, judges must determine whether defendants' plea decisions were made knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily. Little is known, however, about how plea hearings unfold, especially in juvenile court, where hearings are generally closed to the public. In this study, we had the unique opportunity to systematically observe plea hearings in juvenile and criminal court. HYPOTHESES We predicted that plea hearings would be brief and that defendant participation, especially among juveniles, would be minimal. We also explored how often judges addressed the plea validity components of knowingness, intelligence, and voluntariness and whether addressing these components differed by the type of court (juvenile, criminal), pretrial custody status, and pled-to charge severity. METHOD Trained coders in California (n = 104, juvenile court) and Virginia (n = 140, juvenile court; n = 593, criminal court) systematically observed more than 800 guilty plea hearings. Coders reliably documented hearing length, whether the defendant was in pretrial custody, whether the evidence was reviewed, details on defendant participation, and judicial attention to plea validity. RESULTS On average, juvenile plea hearings lasted about 7 min and criminal plea hearings lasted 13 min. Prosecutors rarely reviewed evidence against the defendants in the juvenile courts, and in one juvenile court, judges paid virtually no attention to plea validity. In the other two courts, certain waived rights (e.g., to trial, to silence) were reviewed consistently. Depending on the court, hearing length and plea validity elements addressed varied by defendants' prehearing custody status and the pled-to charge severity. CONCLUSIONS These findings provide novel insight into how components necessary for plea admissibility-knowingness, voluntariness, and intelligence-are discussed with defendants and, in doing so, raise concerns about the degree to which plea validity is actively assessed in plea hearings. Plea hearings are formal, minutes-long events in which defendant engagement is low. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

---

少年法庭和刑事法庭的认罪听证会。

目标 在认罪听证会上，法官必须确定被告的认罪决定是否是在知情、明智和自愿的情况下做出的。然而，人们对认罪听证会如何展开知之甚少，特别是在少年法庭，听证会通常不向公众开放。在这项研究中，我们有独特的机会系统地观察少年法庭和刑事法庭的认罪听证会。假设 我们预计认罪听证会会很简短，被告的参与（尤其是青少年）也会很少。我们还探讨了法官处理知情、情报和自愿等辩诉有效性要素的频率，以及处理这些要素是否因法院类型（青少年、刑事）、审前羁押状况和认罪指控严重程度而有所不同。方法 加利福尼亚州（n = 104，少年法庭）和弗吉尼亚州（n = 140，少年法庭；n = 593，刑事法庭）训练有素的程序员系统地观察了 800 多场认罪听证会。编码人员可靠地记录了听证会的长度、被告是否处于审前羁押、证据是否经过审查、被告参与的详细信息以及司法对认罪有效性的关注。结果 青少年认罪听证会平均持续约 7 分钟，刑事认罪听证会持续 13 分钟。检察官很少在少年法庭审查针对被告的证据，而在一个少年法庭，法官几乎不关注认罪有效性。在另外两个法院，某些放弃的权利（例如审判权、沉默权）得到了一致的审查。根据法院的不同，听证会的长度和抗辩有效性要素因被告的听证前羁押状况和承诺指控的严重程度而异。结论 这些发现为如何与被告讨论辩诉可受理性的必要组成部分（知情性、自愿性和情报）提供了新颖的见解，并在此过程中引起了人们对辩诉听证会中积极评估辩诉有效性程度的担忧。认罪听证会是正式的、长达几分钟的活动，被告参与度较低。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2022 APA，保留所有权利）。