IMO, Hope understood her plea. If we had the transcript of the court minutes, we would see that the Judge would have made sure she understood her plea.
What Hope did know, IMO, was that cousin Ronald had plead nolo contendre' in one of his cases in the past. He did not serve jail/prison time. I think Hope knew that the PSI she waived would have been read by the Judge and he would have seen that she had been out of jail for only two weeks (possession) before getting arrested in this case. That would have been included in a PSI. As it stood, with waiving the PSI, the Judge could not take that into consideration as it was an arrest and not yet a conviction. Hope was in the vehicle when the pills changed hands and that makes everyone responsible to a degree for just having been there. Except for the UC officer, obviously.
Also, Hope will still have to go to court for her possession charge even if she is in prison. So she will have 15+ years unless it is time served.
Hope gambled and lost.
JMO