Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: Who has to initiate a plea bargain?
The plea bargain (also plea agreement or plea deal) is any agreement in a criminal case between the prosecutor and defendant whereby the defendant agrees to plead guilty or nolo contendere to a particular charge in return for some concession from the prosecutor. This may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to a less serious charge, or to one of the several charges, in return for the dismissal of other charges; or it may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to the original criminal charge in return for a more lenient sentence.[1]
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. They have also been increasing in frequency—they rose from 84% of federal cases in 1984 to 94% by 2001. Plea bargains are subject to the approval of the court, and different States and jurisdictions have different rules. Game theory has been used to analyze the plea bargaining decision.
In Japan, plea bargaining was previously forbidden by law, although sources reported that prosecutors illegally offered defendants plea bargains in exchange for their confessions.[53][54][55][56]
Plea bargaining has existed for centuries; in older legal systems convictions were at times routinely procured by confession, and laws existed covering such criminal confessions, although by the 18th century inducements had been forbidden in English Law to prevent miscarriage of justice. Accordingly, early US plea bargain history led to courts' permitting withdrawal of pleas and rejection of plea bargains, although such arrangements continued to happen behind the scenes. A rise in the scale and scope of criminal law led to plea bargaining's gaining new acceptance in the early 20th century, as courts and prosecutors sought to address an overwhelming influx of cases:
According to Italian law, a bargain doesn't need a guilty plea (in Italy there is no plea declaration); for this reason, a bargaining sentence is only an acceptance of the penalty in exchange with the stop of investigation and trial and has no binding cogency in other trials, especially in civil trials in which parts argue of the same facts at the effects of civil liability and in other criminal trials in which are processed the accomplices of the defendant that had requested and got a bargaining sentence.[52]
The "Dictionary of Politics: Selected American and Foreign Political and Legal Terms" defines the term "Alford plea" as: "A plea under which a defendant may choose to plead guilty, not because of an admission to the crime, but because the prosecutor has sufficient evidence to place a charge and to obtain conviction in court. The plea is commonly used in local and state courts in the United States." According to "University of Richmond Law Review", "When offering an Alford plea, a defendant asserts his innocence but admits that sufficient evidence exists to convict him of the offense." "A Guide to Military Criminal Law" notes that under the Alford plea, "the defendant concedes that the prosecution has enough evidence to convict, but the defendant still refuses to admit guilt." The book "Plea Bargaining's Triumph: A History of Plea Bargaining in America" published by Stanford University Press defines the plea as one in "which the defendant adheres to his/her claim of innocence even while allowing that the government has enough evidence to prove his/her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt". According to the book "Gender, Crime, and Punishment" published by Yale University Press, "Under the Alford doctrine, a defendant does not admit guilt but admits that the state has sufficient evidence to find him or her guilty, should the case go to trial." "Webster's New World Law Dictionary" defines Alford plea as: "A guilty plea entered as part of a plea bargain by a criminal defendant who denies committing the crime or who does not actually admit his guilt. In federal courts, such plea may be accepted as long as there is evidence that the defendant is actually guilty."
In China, a plea bargaining pilot scheme has been introduced by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in 2016.[41] For defendants that faces jail terms of three years or below, agrees to plea guilty voluntarily and agree with prosecutors' crime and sentencing proposals, will be given mitigated punishments.[42]
Plea bargaining (Georgian: საპროცესო შეთანხმება, literally "plea agreement") was introduced in Georgia in 2004. The substance of the Georgian plea bargaining is similar to the United States and other common law jurisdictions.[48]
The ruling distinguished "Brady" from other prior cases emphasizing improper confessions, concluding: "we cannot hold that it is unconstitutional for the State to extend a benefit to a defendant who in turn extends a substantial benefit to the State and who demonstrates by his plea that he is ready and willing to admit his crime and to enter the correctional system in a frame of mind that affords hope for success in rehabilitation over a shorter period of time than might otherwise be necessary." It laid down the following conditions for a plea to be valid:"Santobello v. New York" added that when plea bargains are broken, remedies exist; and it has been argued that given the prevalence of plea agreements, the most important rights of the accused may be found in the law of contracts rather than the law of trial procedure.
Pleading guilty typically results in a more lenient punishment for the defendant; it is thus a type of mitigating factor in sentencing. A plea bargain is when 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. Plea bargains are particularly common in the United States. Other countries use a more limited form of plea bargaining. In the United Kingdom and Germany, guidelines state that only the timing of the guilty plea can affect the reduction in the punishment, with an earlier plea resulting in a greater reduction.
Another argument against plea bargaining is that it may not actually reduce the costs of administering justice. For example, if a prosecutor has only a 25% chance of winning his case and sending the defendant away to prison for 10 years, he may make a plea agreement for a one-year sentence; but if plea bargaining is unavailable, he may drop the case completely.
Plea bargains are so common in the Superior Courts of California (the general trial courts) that the Judicial Council of California has published an optional seven-page form (containing all mandatory advisements required by federal and state law) to help prosecutors and defense attorneys reduce such bargains into written plea agreements.[21]
In other cases, formal plea bargains in Pakistan are limited, but the prosecutor has the authority to drop a case or a charge in a case and, in practice, often does so, in return for a defendant pleading guilty on some lesser charge. No bargaining takes place over the penalty, which is the court's sole privilege.[36]
The extent to which innocent people will accept a plea bargain and plead guilty is contentious and has been subjected to considerable research. Much research has focused on the relatively few actual cases where innocence was subsequently proven, such as successful appeals for murder and rape based upon DNA evidence, which tend to be atypical of trials as a whole (being by their nature only the most serious kinds of crime). Other studies have focused on presenting hypothetical situations to subjects and asking what choice they would make. More recently some studies have attempted to examine actual reactions of innocent persons generally, when faced with actual plea bargain decisions. A study by Dervan and Edkins (2013) attempted to recreate a real-life controlled plea bargain situation, rather than merely asking theoretical responses to a theoretical situation—a common approach in previous research.[13] It placed subjects in a situation where an accusation of academic fraud (cheating) could be made, of which some subjects were in fact by design actually guilty (and knew this), and some were innocent but faced seemingly strong evidence of guilt and no verifiable proof of innocence. Each subject was presented with the evidence of guilt and offered a choice between facing an academic ethics board and potentially a heavy penalty in terms of extra courses and other forfeits, or admitting guilt and accepting a lighter "sentence". The study found that as expected from court statistics, around 90% of accused subjects who were actually guilty chose to take the plea-bargain and plead guilty. It also found that around 56% of subjects who were actually innocent (and privately knew it) also to take the plea-bargain and plead guilty, for reasons including avoiding formal quasi-legal processes, uncertainty, possibility of greater harm to personal future plans, or deprivation of home environment due to remedial courses. The authors stated:[13]
Following a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that imposes strict time limits on the resolution of criminal cases (eighteen months for cases in provincial court and thirty months for cases in Superior Court), several provinces have initiated and/or intensified measures intended to maximize the number of minor criminal cases resolved by a plea bargain.
[P]lea bargains are just as likely in strong and weak cases. Prosecutors only need to adjust the offer to the probability of conviction in order to reach an agreement. Thus, weaker cases result in more lenient plea bargains, and stronger ones in relative harshness, but both result in an agreement. [... W]hen the case is weak, the parties must rely on charge bargaining ... But [charge bargaining] is hardly an obstacle. Charge bargaining in weak cases is not the exception; it is the norm all around the country. Thus, even if the evidence against innocent defendants is, on average, weaker, the likelihood of plea bargains is not dependent on guilt.
In Canada, the courts always have the final say with regard to sentencing. Nevertheless, plea bargaining has become an accepted part of the criminal justice system although judges and Crown attorneys are often reluctant to refer to it as such. In most Canadian criminal proceedings, the Crown has the ability to recommend a lighter sentence than it would seek following a guilty verdict in exchange for a guilty plea.[26]
The United States Supreme Court has recognized plea bargaining as both an essential and desirable part of the criminal justice system. The benefits of plea-bargaining are said to be obvious: the relief of court congestion, alleviation of the risks and uncertainties of trial, and its information gathering value.
However, in 1975 the Attorney-General of Alaska, Avrum Gross, ordered an end to all plea-bargaining; subsequent attorneys-general continued the practice. Similar consequences were observed in New Orleans, Ventura County, California, and in Oakland County, Michigan, where plea bargaining has been terminated. Bidinotto found:
Plea bargaining is extremely difficult in jurisdictions based on the civil law. This is because unlike common law systems, civil law systems have no concept of plea—if the defendant confesses; a confession is entered into evidence, but the prosecution is not absolved of the duty to present a full case. A court may decide that a defendant is innocent even though they presented a full confession. Also, unlike common law systems, prosecutors in civil law countries may have limited or no power to drop or reduce charges after a case has been filed, and in some countries their power to drop or reduce charges before a case has been filed is limited, making plea bargaining impossible. Since the 1980s, many civil law nations have adapted their systems to allow for plea bargaining.[38]
Certain aspects of the American justice system serve to promote plea bargaining. For example, the adversarial nature of the U.S. criminal justice system puts judges in a passive role, in which they have no independent access to information with which to assess the strength of the case against the defendant. The prosecutor and defense may thus control the outcome of a case through plea bargaining. The court must approve a plea bargain as being within the interests of justice.[22]
Plea bargaining is a significant part of the criminal justice system in the United States; the vast majority (roughly 90%)[17] of criminal cases in the United States are settled by plea bargain rather than by a jury trial.[18] Plea bargains are subject to the approval of the court, and different States and jurisdictions have different rules. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines are followed in federal cases and have been created to ensure a standard of uniformity in all cases decided in the federal courts. A two- or three-level offense level reduction is usually available for those who accept responsibility by not holding the prosecution to the burden of proving its case; this usually amounts to a complete sentence reduction had they gone to trial and lost.[19]
A criminal case may in some jurisdictions be settled before a trial through a plea bargain. Typically, in a plea bargain, the defendant agrees to plead guilty to a lesser charge than that which was originally brought by the grand jury or prosecutor. A defendant who goes to trial risks greater penalties than would normally be imposed through a plea bargain.
The use of plea bargaining has inspired some controversy over issues such as its potentially coercive effect on incarcerated defendants, defendants who have been charged with more serious offenses than the facts warrant, and innocent defendants, all of whom might feel pressured to enter into a plea bargain to avoid the more serious consequences that would result from conviction.
Plea bargains are so common in the Superior Courts of California that the Judicial Council of California has published an optional seven-page form (containing all mandatory advisements required by federal and state law) to help prosecutors and defense attorneys reduce such bargains into written plea agreements.