There are plenty of cases where an individual is charged with several different crimes and were they only end up being convicted of one or two of them. There are also cases where a defendant will receive a reduced sentence in exchange for pleading guilty to a crime rather than costing the state expense of a trial. This is called plea-bargaining and is something a criminal attorney will sometimes advised that their clients attempt.

Plea-bargaining means working with the prosecution to determine if there is an acceptable arrangement under which they may seek a reduced sentence for you or under which they may drop some of the charges pending against you. For example, if you get pulled over for a DUI and are found to also be in possession of illegal drugs and a firearm, you could feasibly be facing at least three separate charges. The prosecution may agree to drop some of the minor charges in exchange for you pleading guilty to the more serious charges or, in some cases, only the most serious of all the charges.

There are also cases where entering a plea may cause the prosecution to be inclined to argue on your behalf for a more lenient sentence. If you are convicted of a DWI, for instance, and have no other criminal convictions and haven’t even been in trouble with the law at any point during your life, the prosecution may recommend that you are given a lighter sentence because they don’t regard you as a particular threat to society. The amount of plea-bargaining you can do will depend upon the severity of the charges against you. If the charges are very minor, there may even be cases where you can enter into a plea bargain that will end up in a significant charge being completely dismissed from the case.