Talk:Plea

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This page needs work.

Some thoughts, plea is a legal term that is mostly archaic in meaning. In the criminal context it means the criminal's response to the state's indictment or information, in the civil context it is usually a linguistic artifact (such as a plea in bar, or a plea to the jurisdiction). In addition, I believe this is geogrpahically biased.

I recommend an overhaul and consideration of whether this page should be merged into existing articles such as plea bargain.

There seems to be a definition at the top? Should that be in there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.209.208.11 (talk) 07:48, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Oversharging
Why is "overcharging" linked to an article on batteries?! I'm pretty sure that's not the intended meaning, and there is no disambiguation page either. Please let us all know what "overcharging" means in the legal area? Thanks.

I agree there are more meanings to "plea" than a response to prosecution (guilty or not guilty). I'm not sure of the exact definition, though. I think it is a statement initiating a lawsuit, or maybe the lawsuit itself. This is the usage in the name of the court the "Court of Common Pleas". The "pleas of the crown" were reasons for criminal prosecution, where the plaintiff is the crown. There is also the expression "counterplea". Count Truthstein (talk) 03:33, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Peremptory pleas and "special liability to repair a road or bridge"

I believe "special liability to repair a road or bridge" was a special case where where 'res judicata' did not apply to a claim. Namely in a case where party A had been acquitted on the defence that a third party, B, was liable, and B was subsequently tried and obtained acquittal by proving that A was liable, A could be tried again. Nonetheless, it is listed as a Plea in Bar in the Oxford Dictionary of Law Enforcement. William Avery (talk) 14:08, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Let's rename to Plea (legal)

"Plea" is ambiguous. A person might make a plea in normal conversation, which is not the meaning discussed in this article. The added parenthetical clarification would be analogous to the one on Filing (legal). Any thoughts? I can just do it, but won't rush. -- econterms (talk) 21:04, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Other countries

I'm not qualified to add this, but we should really have something about non-Common-Law countries. In many, if not perhaps most, of them the idea of "pleading guilty" or "pleading not guilty" simply doesn't exist. The defendant can of course confess their guilt or dispute their guilt as part of the trial, but there is no formal plea before the trial. Guilt is always determined through the trial itself and the evidence presented therein. 178.7.217.74 (talk) 02:12, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree, at the moment this article does not cover other countries. In the section "Types of plea" it says: "Pleading guilty typically results in a more lenient punishment for the defendant; it is thus a type of mitigating factor in sentencing." Well, I live in Sweden, a Nordic civil law country. Here if you admit guilt in the court, the court usually sentence you harder. Their logic is that if you admit guilt, they can be sure you did it, and they can give you the full sentence. But if you claim you are innocent and the prosecution's evidence is not 100% they give you a shorter sentence. The less convincing the evidence, the shorter the sentence. They call that a "punishment discount".

The police and the prosecutors often trick people into admitting by claiming the accused will get a reduced sentence if they admit, and people often believe it and admit since they have seen so many American crime dramas on TV. While Swedish crime dramas usually don't show the court action, just the police work.

--David Göthberg (talk) 18:34, 18 August 2024 (UTC)