WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court questioned Tuesday whether defendants are entitled to accurate legal advice on all the potential consequences of a guilty plea.

The case, Padilla v. Kentucky, which focuses on Jose Padilla, a Honduran-born immigrant who faces deportation after pleading guilty to felony marijuana trafficking, has broader significance for the more than 12.8 million legal immigrants living in the U.S.

Padilla wants his guilty plea tossed out, arguing that it violates his Sixth Amendment rights guaranteeing effective assistance of counsel and maintains that he wouldn't have pleaded guilty if he hadn't been misinformed by his court-appointed attorney of the broader consequences.

Attorney Stephen Kinnaird, representing Padilla in the Kentucky case, argued that it is the responsibility of defense lawyers to inform clients of both the direct consequences of a plea -- such as the scope and duration of a prison sentence -- and the broader ``collateral'' consequences such as deportation.

``A lawyer has a distinct duty to assess the advantages and disadvantages of a plea,'' Kinnaird told the court.

In 2001, Padilla, a Vietnam War veteran, truck driver and legal resident of the U.S. for 40 years, was pulled over at a Kentucky weigh station and arrested when Styrofoam boxes containing 1,033 pounds of marijuana were found in his 18-wheeler. Padilla was charged with several state crimes and felony drug trafficking. He originally pleaded not guilty, but was detained for a year pending investigation of possible deportation.

The following year, Padilla agreed to a plea agreement of reduced jail time after his court-appointed attorney told him that a guilty plea wouldn't affect his immigration status.

That advice was wrong.

Padilla was sentenced to five years in prison and five years of probation and now faces deportation -- fallout Kinnaird attributes to the poor legal counsel Padilla received.

The justices sharply questioned Kinnaird and expressed concern that such a stance would force attorneys to give myriad legal advice on the indirect consequences of a plea rather than focus on the case at hand.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wondered how time-strapped and overloaded court-appointed attorneys could be expected to distinguish between the broader consequences that could affect a defendant and those that don't.

Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito pressed Kinnaird on how attorneys and courts could protect themselves from situations in which, after sentencing, defendants later say they were misinformed of a plea's larger consequences.

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