Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Plea bargains can take different forms, such as charge bargaining, where a defendant pleads guilty to a lesser offense, or sentence bargaining, where the expected sentence is agreed upon before a guilty plea. In addition, count bargaining involves pleading guilty to a subset of multiple charges.
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.
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 United States law, an Alford plea, also called a Kennedy plea in West Virginia, [1] an Alford guilty plea, [2] [3] [4] and the Alford doctrine, [5] [6] [7] is a guilty plea in criminal court, [8] [9] [10] whereby a defendant in a criminal case does not admit to the criminal act and asserts innocence, but accepts imposition of a sentence.
In cases where the "sole advantage a defendant would have received under the plea is a lesser sentence", the Supreme Court ruled that courts should "exercise discretion in determining whether the defendant should receive the term of imprisonment the government offered in the plea, the sentence he received at trial, or something in between". [24]
In a plea bargain, a defendant makes a deal with the prosecution or court to plead guilty in exchange for a more lenient punishment, or for related charges against them to be dropped. A "blind plea" is a guilty plea entered with no plea agreement in place. [3] Plea bargains are particularly common in the United States. [4]
This list of U.S. states by Alford plea usage documents usage of the form of guilty plea known as the Alford plea in each of the U.S. states in the United States. An Alford plea (also referred to as Alford guilty plea [1] [2] [3] and Alford doctrine [4] [5] [6]) in the law of the United States is a guilty plea in criminal court, [7] [8] [9] where the defendant does not admit the act and ...