Plea bargain
In China, a plea bargaining pilot scheme has been introduced by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in 2016. For defendants that faces jail terms of three years or below, agrees to plea guilty voluntarily and agree with prosecutors' crime and sentencing proposals, will be given mitigated punishments.
Pleading
In its final form in the 19th century, common law pleading was terribly complex and slow by modern standards. The parties would normally go through several rounds of pleadings before the parties were deemed to have clearly stated their controversy, so that the case was "at issue" and could proceed to trial. A case would begin with a complaint in which the plaintiff alleged the facts entitling him to relief, then the defendant would file any one of a variety of pleas as an answer, followed by a replication from the plaintiff, a rejoinder from the defendant, a surrejoinder from the plaintiff, a rebutter from the defendant, and a surrebutter from the plaintiff. At each stage, a party could file a demurrer to the other's pleading (essentially a request that the court immediately rule on whether the pleading was legally adequate before they had to file a pleading in response) or simply file another pleading in response.