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A plea bargain, also known as a plea agreement or plea deal, is a legal arrangement in criminal law where the defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest to a charge in exchange for concessions from the prosecutor. These concessions can include a reduction in the severity of the charges, the dismissal of some charges, or a more lenient ...
Plea bargaining in the United States is very common; the vast majority of criminal cases in the United States are settled by plea bargain rather than by a jury trial. [1] They have also been increasing in frequency—they rose from 84% of federal cases in 1984 to 94% by 2001. [ 2 ]
In a plea bargain, a criminal defendant waives their right to trial and agrees to plead guilty to a lesser charge than would have been brought against them at trial or agrees to plead guilty to the original charge in exchange for a sentence that is less than the maximum possible.
Under common law systems, a defendant who pleads guilty will be convicted if the court accepts the plea. The court will then determine and impose a sentence. Plea bargaining involves discussions between the prosecutor and defendants to reach an agreement for a guilty plea in exchange for a more lenient punishment.
In August 2007, Galin Frye was arrested and charged with driving without a license for the third time, making it a felony in Missouri.The prosecutor in the case sent Frye's attorney two plea offers; one to recommend a three-year sentence with Frye serving only ten days in jail if he pleaded guilty to the felony, and the second to reduce the felony to a misdemeanor, and Frye to serve 90 days in ...
If fact bargaining is acceptable, then the entire moral and intellectual basis for the Sentencing Guidelines is rendered essentially meaningless." [2] Judges rarely overturn stipulations reached by fact bargaining. [3] In some cases, "creative" plea bargains are reached in which the defendant pleads guilty to a totally different lesser crime.
In its absence, a sentence but not the conviction may be overturned, resulting in the need for a new sentencing hearing. In the federal system, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 32(i)(4) provides that the court must "address the defendant personally in order to permit the defendant to speak or present any information to mitigate the sentence".
As noted above, another recommendation was the abolition of plea bargaining: the negotiation of prosecutorial charging and sentencing recommendations in return for guilty pleas. [19] Still another groundbreaking recommendation was that most offenders receive a maximum sentence of no more than five years except for career offenders. [20]