Plea bargaining

A plea bargain (also plea agreement, plea deal or copping a plea) is an agreement in a criminal case in which a prosecutor and a defendant arrange to settle the case against the defendant. The defendant agrees to plead guilty  (and often allocute) or no contest and in some cases to also provide testimony against another person in exchange for some agreement from the prosecutor as to the punishment. A plea bargain can also include the prosecutor agreeing to charge a lesser crime (also called reducing the charges), and dismissing some of the charges against the defendant. In most cases, a plea bargain is used to reduce jail sentence time or fines associated to the crime being charged with.
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Noun
1. (criminal law) a negotiation in which the defendant agrees to enter a plea of guilty to a lesser charge and the prosecutor agrees to drop a more serious charge; "his admission was part of a plea bargain with the prosecutor"; "plea bargaining helps to stop the courts becoming congested"
(synonym) plea bargain
(hypernym) bargaining
(derivation) plea-bargain
(classification) criminal law

Verb
1. agree to plead guilty in return for a lesser charge; "If he plea-bargains, he will be sent to a medium-security prison for 8 years"
(hypernym) agree
(derivation) plea bargain, plea bargaining
(classification) law, jurisprudence

Negotiations during a criminal trial, between an accused person and a prosecutor in which the accused agrees to admit to a crime (sometimes a lesser crime than the one set out in the original charge), avoiding the expense of a public trial, in exchange for which the prosecutor agrees to ask for a more lenient sentence than would have been recommended if the case had of proceeded to full trial. - (read more on Plea bargaining)