An accused can plead guilty only if he actually committed the crime and admits it in open session before the judge. If the accused admits the crime, he agrees that he is guilty and accepts that he can be “convicted” by the presiding judge – the only person authorized to impose a sentence. Sometimes, under an agreement, the government agrees not to recommend a longer sentence (p.B. an additional prison sentence for certain reasons), but it is up to the judge to determine how the accused will be punished. Advocacy negotiation (Georgian: საპროცესო შეთანხმება, literally “Plea Agreement”) was introduced in Georgia in 2004. The content of Georgian plea bargaining is similar to that of the United States and other common law jurisdictions. [49] Plea bargaining is essentially a private process, but this is changing now that victims` rights groups are recognized. Under many victims` rights laws, victims have the right to participate in the negotiation process. Usually, the details of a plea bargain are not known to the public until they are announced in court. Plea bargaining was considered a primarily American phenomenon in the 1970s, but has since spread around the world. [4] John H.

Langbein argues that the modern American system of plea bargaining is comparable to the medieval European torture system: the plea agreement without the consent of the court has no legal effect. The court must ensure that the agreement on the opposition is concluded on the basis of the free will of the defendant, that the defendant fully recognizes the essence of the agreement of action and its consequences. (Article 212 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Georgia) Plea bargaining may conclude criminal proceedings without trial. If successful, the plea bargain will result in an agreement between the prosecutor and the defendant. In this agreement, the defendant agrees to plead guilty without trial and, in return, the prosecutor agrees to dismiss certain charges or give favorable recommendations to the court. Plea bargaining is expressly permitted by laws and regulations similar to those of the courts. Previous research has argued that the problem of innocence is minimal because defendants are risk-averse and willing to defend themselves in court. However, our research shows that when study participants are placed in real, non-hypothetical negotiation situations and given accurate information about their statistical probability of success, just as they might be informed by their lawyer or the government during a criminal trial, innocent defendants are very reluctant to risk. Other critics focus on the benefits that plea bargaining brings to defendants. They argue that plea bargaining mitigates the deterrent effect of penalties because it gives defendants the power to negotiate lighter sentences. These critics note that experienced criminals are more likely to receive cheap plea negotiations because they are familiar with the criminal justice system. According to these critics, plea bargaining undermines the thesis that a criminal should receive an appropriate sentence for the crime.

Theoretical work based on the prisoner`s dilemma is one of the reasons why plea bargaining is banned in many countries. Often, this is exactly the scenario of the prisoner`s dilemma: it is in the interest of both suspects to confess and testify against the other suspect, regardless of the innocence of the accused. The worst case is probably when only one party is guilty: here, the innocent has no incentive to confess, while the guilty has a strong incentive to confess and testify against the innocent (including false statements). [Citation needed] Plea bargaining can pose a dilemma for defense lawyers, as they must decide whether they should vigorously seek a good deal for their current client or maintain a good relationship with the attorney to help future clients. [2] However, in the case of the United States, criminal defense lawyers are bound by the ethics of the Bar Association to place the interests of the current client above the interests of others. Violation of this rule may result in the State Bar Association imposing disciplinary sanctions on the defence lawyer. [3] For example, an accused charged with robbery facing a maximum sentence of ten years in prison. During the trial, both parties could agree that the accused will spend at least one year in prison, but limit the maximum sentence to five years. Each party would then plead before the judge to obtain the verdict it deems appropriate, based on the accused`s criminal history and the facts of the crime. The judge would then order a sentence of one to five years. Incomplete plea negotiations may also exist when both parties are close to reaching an agreement, but cannot determine the exact terms. When this happens, both parties submit their incomplete agreement to the judge, who then hears both parties on the remaining details.

This is sometimes referred to as the penalty cap. Poland has also introduced a limited form of plea bargaining, which only applies to minor offences (punishable by up to 10 years in prison). The trial is called “voluntary sentencing” and allows the court to impose an agreed penalty without reviewing the evidence, which significantly shortens the process. Some specific conditions must be met at the same time: advocacy negotiation is widely used for practical reasons. Some critics of plea bargaining argue that the trial is unfair to the accused. These critics argue that prosecutors have too much discretion in choosing the charges an accused might face. When an accused is arrested, prosecutors have the power to lay charges if they have sufficient facts to support a reasonable presumption that the defendant committed the crime. This standard is called probable cause and is a lower standard than the ability to prove an indictment beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard that prosecutors must meet in court.

Therefore, for reasons of leverage, a prosecutor may bring similar and more serious charges without believing that the charges can be proven beyond any doubt in court. In collective bargaining, defendants plead guilty to a crime less serious than the original charges against them. In collective bargaining, they plead guilty to a subset of several original charges. At sentencing hearings, they plead guilty and agree in advance on the sentence to be imposed; however, this sentence may still be rejected by the judge. In fact, the defendants plead guilty, but the prosecutor agrees to establish (i.e., confirm or admit) certain facts that affect how the defendant is punished under the criminal guidelines. In Canada, the courts always have the final say on sentencing. Nevertheless, plea bargaining has become an accepted part of the criminal justice system, although judges and Crown prosecutors are often reluctant to call it that. In most Canadian criminal cases, the Crown has the option of recommending a lighter sentence than it would request after a guilty verdict in exchange for an admission of guilt. [28] The history of plea bargaining in the United States is rather unclear, in part because in most places and jurisdictions, negotiations were considered inappropriate until the late 1960s. Some of the first pleadings took place in colonial times at the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, when accused witches were informed that they would live if they confessed, but were executed if they did not. The Salem judges wanted to promote confessions, and in order to discover more witches, they wanted confessed witches to testify against others. The admission of guilt saved many witches accused of execution.

Later, the Salem witch trials were used to illustrate one of the strongest arguments against plea bargaining: that the practice sometimes leads innocent defendants to plead guilty. Many jurisdictions maintain laws that require the victim to be informed of the plea bargain. In Indiana, for example, a prosecutor must inform the victim of a crime of negotiations with the accused or the accused`s lawyer about a recommendation the prosecutor can make to the court. .

About Author

blackk