The simplified order of the court proceedings on the basis of agreements: experience of the procedure legislation of the USA

Abstract

The paper is dedicated to issues on simplified order of pre-trial investigation in Federal Criminal Procedure Legislation of the USA. It is stressed, the plea agreement is a separate institute of criminal procedure in the USA. The plea agreement is a comprehensive legal category, that includes a few independent criminal and procedural compromises. They are «Nolo Contendere Plea» (“I do not admit guilt, but I do not deny it either”), «Alford Plea» (“I admit the guilt, but I deny it”). The Alford Plea is an alternative to the Nolo Contendere. While Nolo contendere means that the defendant accepts whatever punishment the court deems appropriate but does not plead guilty, an Alford Plea means that the defendant pleads guilty but at the same time maintains his innocence. In general, the plea agreement is a compromise procedure, mentioned by the legislation. As a rule, it has features of agreement on terms of responsibility between the prosecution and the defense, in writing. The plea agreement is established in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure of the United States, (Rule 11) and court decisions of a precedent nature. The plea agreement can be concluded on the stage of pre-trial investigation, at a preliminary hearing in court, at a grand jury trial, at the opening of a court session, but before the merits of the case begin. The appearance of agreements in the criminal justice needs, among other, developing of criminalistic methods of investigation of specifical kinds of crimes. Today, procedural regulation and distribution of agreements in criminal proceedings is practically not reflected in the novelization of the approaches of the forensic methodology of investigation of certain types of criminal offenses and forensic tactics. For the national legislator as well as for law enforcement, the experience of regulation of plea agreements in the USA has a significant mean. The architecture of this institution, provided by the CPC of Ukraine, is very simplified and needs to be developed.