Answer:
A defendant accused of four separate assaults pleads guilty to one assault count, and the three remaining criminal charges are dismissed. This is an example of count bargaining.
Explanation:
A plea bargaining is an agreement in a criminal case in which the prosecutor agrees to reduce the sentence in exchange for the acknowledgment by the accused of his guilt.
Among these, the count bargaining is what causes the accused to be sentenced only by one of the multiple crimes of which he is accused.
This is a cornerstone of the criminal justice system in the United States of America, with almost all trials in urban areas being handled by this process, rather than the jury process. The prosecutor often agrees to impose a reduced sentence or to impose a fine. The negotiation of a sentence is subject to the permission of the court.
This process is very rarely applied in civil law countries, which do not apply the concept of bargaining. If the accused admits the charges, this is only evidence, but the prosecution has yet to file a complete case.
There may be several reasons for this negotiation. Most often, the prosecutor seeks to avoid the uncertainty of the jury trial. Prosecutors have, in general, a wide choice to decide which charges they will charge. Sometimes the prosecution seeks the defender's cooperation to prosecute other defendants. In other cases, prosecutors may be convicted of guilt, but the burden of proof is too difficult to establish.
Critics of the system point out that bargaining can put a lot of pressure on the accused, who can be reduced to pleading guilty to offenses he did not commit. In this procedure, it all depends on the negotiation skills, which gives an advantage to the files in which good, and therefore expensive, lawyers are involved. In addition, the system encourages prosecutors to choose the most serious charges at the beginning of the case, to give themselves negotiating leeway. Finally, jurists, especially civil law jurisdictions, often find this principle contrary to the purpose of the law to associate an action with a penalty.
