Plea bargaining in the United States
The constitutionality of plea bargaining was established by "Brady v. United States" in 1970, although the Supreme Court warned that plea incentives which were sufficiently large or coercive as to over-rule defendants' abilities to act freely, or used in a manner giving rise to a significant number of innocent people pleading guilty, might be prohibited or lead to concerns over constitutionality. "Santobello v. New York" added that when plea bargains are broken, legal remedies exist.
Plea bargain
When the defendant deems that the punishment that would, concretely, be handed down is less than a five-year imprisonment (or that it would just be a fine), the defendant may request to plea bargain with the prosecutor. The defendant is rewarded with a reduction on the sentence and has other advantages (such as that the defendant does not pay the fees on the proceeding). The defendant must accept the penalty for the charges (even if the plea-bargained sentence has some particular matters in further compensation proceedings), no matter how serious the charges are.