Plea Bargain
An agreement in criminal proceedings where the defendant agrees to plead guilty, often to a lesser charge, in exchange for a more lenient sentence or the dropping of other charges. While common in the US, plea bargaining in England & Wales is more limited and regulated by the Goodyear indication procedure.
Independent editorial summary — not the official statute text. Read the official version on legislation.gov.uk.
England and Wales do not operate the kind of formal, negotiated plea bargaining seen in the United States. What exists instead is more limited: prosecutors may agree a 'basis of plea' — a factual basis on which a defendant offers to plead guilty — governed by the Attorney General's Guidelines on the Acceptance of Pleas and the Prosecutor's Role in the Sentencing Exercise, and a defendant may separately seek an indication from the trial judge of the likely sentence on a guilty plea, following the procedure set out in R v Goodyear (Karl) [2005] EWCA 888.
The Attorney General's Guidelines specify that only in the Crown Court may sentence indications be sought, and advocates are reminded that such indications should not be sought unless issues between the prosecution and defence have been addressed and resolved. Where there is no final agreement about the plea or the basis of plea and the defence nevertheless proceeds to seek an indication of sentence, the prosecution advocate should remind the judge of the guidance in Goodyear that normally speaking an indication of sentence should not be given until the basis of the plea has been agreed or the judge has concluded that the case can properly be dealt with without a trial of the issue.
Related terms
Official sources
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