634
Scalia, J., dissenting
in jury-trial cases, there must be added the further undeniable fact that guilty-plea cases are very much more numerous than jury-trial cases. Last year, 51,647 of the 55,648 defendants convicted and sentenced in federal court (or nearly 93 percent) pleaded guilty. Administrative Office of the United States Courts, L. Mecham, Judicial Business of the United States Courts: 1997 Report of the Director 214.
When all these factors are taken into account, it could not be clearer that the premise for our adoption in Schlup of the super-generous "miscarriage of justice" exception to normal finality rules—viz., that the cases in which defendants seek to invoke the exception would be "extremely rare"—is simply not true when the exception is extended to guilty pleas. To the contrary, the cases will be extremely frequent, placing upon the criminal-justice system a burden it will be unable to bear—especially in light of the fact, discussed earlier, that on remand the habeas trial court will not have any trial record on the basis of which to make the "actual innocence" determination.
Not only does the disposition agreed upon today overload the criminal-justice system; it makes relief available where equity demands that relief be denied. When a defendant pleads guilty, he waives his right to have a jury make the requisite findings of guilt—typically in exchange for a lighter sentence or reduced charges. Thus, defendants plead guilty to charges that have not been proved—that perhaps could not be proved—in order to avoid conviction on charges of which they are "actually guilty," which carry a harsher penalty. Under today's holding, a defendant who is the "wheelman" in a bank robbery in which a person is shot and killed, and who pleads guilty in state court to the offense of voluntary manslaughter in order to avoid trial on felony-murder charges, is entitled to federal habeas review of his contention that his guilty plea was "involuntary" because he was not advised that intent to kill was an element of the manslaughter offense, and that he was "actually innocent" of man-
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