How does this work in court? Pleading guilty to a case guarantees a sentence. Whereas not guilty allows you a chance to defend yourself. Doesn’t seem like most defendants would plead guilty. Why is this even a thing?
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What’s to defend?
You pled guilty. That means you did it, exactly as alleged.
If there was a compelling reason for you to need to do that, you plead not guilty by way of…. whatever. Self defence. Insanity. Whatever.
But guilty means you accept the exact charge that was levied against you. It *was* assault or theft or whatever. You are testifying before a court that you did it.
Which is why plea deals when you are innocent are stupid. Pleading guilty might well be taken legally as you being at that place, at that time, doing that thing… and that can come back to bite you in other ways.
Guilty pleas aren’t unheard of. People who are bang to rights do it all the time. You can end up with a lesser sentence (because of the hassle of proving the case otherwise).
But a guilty plea is 100% acceptance that what you were charged with happened.
Another reason I’m not seeing here is in the US often times people cannot afford bail and will be held in jail until their trial, which can take months and sometimes years. It is not uncommon to hear that someone was held awaiting trial for 8 months only for the charges to be dropped. So if the offer from the prosecutor is probation if you plead guilty or sitting in jail until trial if you don’t, many people just plead guilty to get it over with.
Basically, the court punishes you for making it work to prove you a liar. Or rewards you for not making it go through the hoops.
Which is great, except when you’re innocent but the case against you looks strong. Then you’ll find yourself in the invidious position of, “I could plead not guilty, but very probably get found guilty anyway and and get a heavy sentence, – or I could plead guilty for something I didn’t do, get a much lighter sentence, but carry that guilty verdict for the foreseeable future”. Happened to a good friend of mine (with a very high probability) – the offence was so out of character, and I knew enough of the surrounding circumstances, that I firmly believed them, and still do (even more – see below), when they said they weren’t guilty. But the potential difference between sentences was massive, and the case against them looked near-watertight (based, I should add, primarily on evidence from someone later convicted of fraud in the matter in question). In the end they took the “guilty” plea. Which, in my view, was brave – but when the evidence in question then became highly suspect, they had no legal way to reverse their plea. “They admitted it, they did it” was effectively the legal position.
**ELI5 Answer**: In most cases, admission of guilt is a sign of remorse and is useful to convince justices to give minimal sentences.
However, there are multiple forms of pleading “Not Guilty” that does admit culpability. For example “Not Guilty by Reason of Temporary Insanity”: Here, the defendant is admitting that they physically performed the crime, but were not in the right frame of mind. In those cases, the recommendation can be admission to a psychiatric hospital (basically medical prison, but usually more controlled).
In the U.S., there is also a concept called *Plea of No Contest*. This is like pleading guilty to save the courts time and energy, but preserving your claim of innocence. This is typically an option taken when a lawyer knows that in a lower-court there’s little chance of victory for their client, but a greater chance that an appeal to the higher-court can “throw out” some aspects of the previous trial due to technicalities. Note, if a defendant does plead guilty, they may still appeal, but it takes extraordinary evidence to entertain that appeal (e.g., proof the the defendant was coerced into confessing and thus rendering a guilty plea).
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