A plea bargain ( also plea agreement, plea deal or copping a plea ) is an agreement in a criminal case between the prosecutor and defendant whereby the defendant agrees to plead guilty to a particular charge in return for some concession from the prosecutor.

Most media reports merely said there were negotiations ( which is highly likely, given how common plea deals are ); it was mainly Pfingst who said that Westerfield wanted the deal.

In the case of hybrid offences in England and Wales, the decision whether to deal with a case in Magistrates Court or Crown Court is not made by magistrates until after a plea has been entered.

The agents responsible pled guilty to manslaughter as part of a plea deal and were sentenced to ten years in prison, but secretly released early to France under an agreement between the two countries ' governments.

* Do As I Do, Not As I Say Fastow plea deal contradicts the feds ' policy

The plea bargain was later mocked by former Maryland Attorney General Stephen H. Sachs as " the greatest deal since the Lord spared Isaac on the mountaintop ".

Bo and Luke had previously been sentenced to probation for illegal transportation of moonshine ; their Uncle Jesse made a plea deal with the U. S. Government to stop brewing moonshine in exchange.

The hospital administrator Stan Wiley was indicted on felony retaliation charges and accepted a plea deal in March 2011.

As part of the plea deal, Wiley agreed to cooperate with the prosecution of the three remaining defendants.

On July 1, 1997, he agreed to a plea deal that required him to complete 16 hours of community service, in exchange for dismissal of the drug charge.

To hear Mr. al-Arian's family and supporters describe the plea agreement, you might think the defendant been exonerated .... By contrast, the Justice Department described the deal as if it were a big win in the war on terrorism ....

" In a motion filed on March 4, 2009, prosecutors in Virginia acknowledged that when Al-Arian took the plea deal in early 2006, prosecutors in Tampa believed that it exempted him from testifying in other cases.

On June 26, 2009, in a plea deal with prosecutors, she pleaded guilty to one charge of filing a false document involving a worker ’ s duties.

As part of a plea deal between the defense and federal prosecutors, federal Judge Dale Kimball gave Barzee credit for seven years that she already has served, the U. S. attorney in Utah said.

This plea deal was only agreed upon to get a lesser sentence for himself and Andrew.

Journalist and author Selwyn Raab described Gigante's plea deal as an " unprecedented capitulation " for a mafia boss.

In January 1995, Curry was acquitted on all charges, Chambers was found guilty and Longstreet took a plea deal.

Deputy prosecutor Jeffrey Baird noted in court that the deal contained " the names of 41 victims who would not be the subject of State v. Ridgway if it were not for the plea agreement.

Heatley avoided having to go to trial as part of a plea deal that dropped the first-degree charge of vehicular homicide.

Stewart is currently serving three consecutive life sentences in prison on kidnapping charges, having rejected a plea deal of 12 years in order to spread his message in open court.

He was sentenced in a plea deal to twelve years imprisonment and five years post-release supervision for manslaughter on June 9, 2010.

Prosecutors offered Thomas Reedy a twenty year prison term and Janice Reedy a five year term if they would plead guilty, but the Reedys refused the plea deal, believing they could not be held legally responsible for the content of third party websites.

The board members, after hearing the coordination plea from Mrs. Ralph H. Molvar, 1409 SW Maplecrest Dr., said they thought they had already been cooperating.

Defendants usually enter an Alford guilty plea if they want to avoid a possible worse sentence were they to lose the case against them at trial.

In addition, proponents of inquisitorial systems argue that the plea bargain system causes the participants within the system to act in perverse ways, in that it encourages prosecutors to bring charges far in excess of what is warranted and defendants to plead guilty even when they believe that they are not.

Some time ago, when the reading public was alarmed at being told how London milk is adulterated, timid persons deprecated the exposure, on the plea that it would give instructions in the art of adulterating milk ; a vain fear, milkmen knew all about it before, whether they practiced it or not ; and the exposure only taught purchasers the necessity of a little scrutiny and caution, leaving them to obey this necessity or not, as they pleased.

Their treatment of the aboriginal inhabitants, whom they are accused of having practically exterminated, is a grave charge, and if true, cannot be condoned on the plea that such conduct was characteristic of the age, and that as bad or worse was perpetrated by other nations even in later years.

Some time ago, when the reading public was alarmed at being told how London milk is adulterated, timid persons deprecated the exposure, on the plea that it would give instructions in the art of adulterating milk ; a vain fear, milkmen knew all about it before, whether they practiced it or not ; and the exposure only taught purchasers the necessity of a little scrutiny and caution, leaving them to obey this necessity or not, as they pleased.

Our research, however, demonstrates that when study participants are placed in real, rather than hypothetical, bargaining situations and are presented with accurate information regarding their statistical probability of success, just as they might be so informed by their attorney or the government during a criminal plea negotiation, innocent defendants are highly risk-averse.

Prosecutors tend to be strongly motivated by conviction rates, and " there are many indications that prosecutors are willing to go a long way to avoid losing cases, that when prosecutors decide to proceed with such weak cases they are often willing to go a long way to assure that a plea bargain is struck ".

As many crimes have very narrow sentencing bands, a prosecutor often has scope to propose whatever degree of " discounted " charges, or substitution of misdemeanor rather than felony charges, to whatever extent they believe would incentivise a defendant to make a guilty plea and accept a speedy conviction, regardless of actual guilt.

For instance, Robert Badinter argued that plea bargaining would give too much power to the public prosecutor and would encourage defendants to accept a sentence only to avoid the risk of a bigger sentence in a trial, even if they did not really deserve it.

Accordingly, in cases of all but the most minor offences, the court or the prosecution ( depending upon local custom and the presiding judge's preference ) will engage in a plea colloquy wherein they ask the defendant a series of rote questions about the defendant's knowledge of his rights and the voluntariness of the plea.

Paul Smith, an outspoken foe of prostitution, 300 prostitutes make a plea for toleration, explaining they had been forced into the practice by poverty.

This deteriorated from a request to a plea, with one liquidator's representative speaking to Nick Ferrari on LBC 97. 3 to justify why they wanted the money, but when asked ' How are you going to force people to return these boxes, are you going to employ collection agencies?

Arguments that the plans for the Battle of Leyte Gulf, involving all Japanese ships, would expose Japan to serious danger if they failed, were countered with the plea that the Navy be permitted to " bloom as flowers of death.

God told Moses that the plea of Zelophehad's daughters was just, and that they should be granted their father's hereditary holding.

So Moses, at God's bidding, instructed the Israelites that the plea of the tribal leaders was just and that Zelophehad's daughters could marry anyone they wished, but only among the men of the tribe of Manasseh.

In a letter to the U. S. military commission at Guantanamo after the plea of guilty had been heard but before the announcement of sentence, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN secretary-general's special representative for children and armed conflict, wrote that Khadr represents the " classic child soldier narrative: recruited by unscrupulous groups to undertake actions at the bidding of adults to fight battles they barely understand ", and suggested that Khadr to be released into a rehabilitation program.

Jewish organisations were horrified by Grynszpan's action, which they condemned more severely than most non-Jewish liberals, while echoing the plea of extenuating circumstances, and condemning the subsequent victimization of all German Jews in response to the act of an isolated individual.

… My plea is for a frank and common-sense acceptance of those features and materials which are practical and beautiful, regardless as to whether they conform with the formula of either the modern or the traditional school.