PLEA BARGAINING
Plea Bargaining is the central feature of modern criminal justice system. It is also known as Pre-trial settlement, plea discussions, plea negotiations, resolution discussion etc. In its most traditional and general sense, “plea bargaining” refers to pre-trial negotiations between the defendant, usually conducted by the counsel and the prosecution, during which the defendant agrees to plead guilty in exchange for certain concessions by the prosecutor. The concept of plea-bargaining is an alternative remedy to the long and tortuous process of trial in courts which has been introduced to ensure speedy disposal of cases and to reduce congestion in prisons.
Plea bargaining is a contract with the state wherein the defendant …show more content…

Only occasional instances of plea bargaining have been reported prior to the nineteenth century and recorded in the judicial history of the West and East. For example, scholars who have studied eighteenth-century crimes and prosecutions in the Old Bailey in London report no instances of plea bargaining. Ordinarily, the judges of the Old Bailey urged the accused who offered to plead guilty to reconsider it, and face the trial.
History narrates that although plea bargaining in felony cases before the nineteenth century was rare, non-trial dispositions in minor misdemeanour cases may have been the subject of express or implicit bargains. Such Courts could permit a plea, which allowed an accused to submit to conviction and pay a fine without admitting guilt. Judges, however, did not allow such pleas in serious cases, and in the early nineteenthcentury in America, guilty pleas typically accounted for a minority of felony convictions. When occasional cases of plea bargaining began to appear in reported decisions in the second half of the century, appellate judges voiced strong disapproval of the practice.
Despite this disapproval, plea bargaining became routine in many places before the end of the century. Plea bargaining is common in England, Canada, and most of the other nations of the British Commonwealth. Earlier Germany was a "land without plea bargaining". The formal plea of guilty was well-known in judicial proceedings in