Plea bargaining is said to be the most critical process in the criminal justice system. A Plea Bargain is a practice whereby the acussed forgoes his right to plead not guilty and demand full trial and instead uses a right to bargain for benefit. This benefit is usually related to charge or sentence. In other words, Plea Bargaining refers to a process where the accused’s plea of guilty has been bargained for and some consideration has been received for it. A plea bargain is derogation from the concept that a judge can only decide the sentence after hearing in an open Court.
The term Plea Bargain is used to cover a number of different things. It is sometimes used to describe the discussions between the prosecution and the an accused’s legal advisers concerning the charges upon which an accused will be presented for trial and including indications that the accused is prepared to plead guilty to certain offences. This may be defined as Prosecutorial Plea Bargaining. The term also covers discussions in which the trial
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The United States have been implementing plea bargaining in the country for several hundred years because the “full blown” trial with all the guarantees is not affordable today. In a criminal case, the accused has three options as far as pleas are concerned guilty, not guilty or a plea of nolo contendere. A plea-bargain is a contractual agreement between the prosecution and the accused concerning the disposition of a criminal charge. However, unlike most contractual agreements, it is not enforceable until a judge approves it. Plea bargaining thus refers to pre-trial negotiations between the defence and the prosecution, in which the accused agrees to plead guilty in exchange for certain concessions guaranteed by the prosecutor. The practice of what has come to be known as ‘plea bargaining’ has been the subject of considerable debate over the last few