CHAPTER ONE

1.0 Introduction

The term plea bargaining is one which attracts different meanings worldwide and there is no standard universal definition. A broad and simple definition would be where an accused person is given an incentive to plead guilty by a promise, or at least a chance, that he will be 'rewarded' in a certain way.1 Black's Law Dictionary offers a definition of plea bargaining that refers to the accused person and the prosecutor as working 'out a mutually satisfactory disposition of the case subject to court approval. It usually involves the accused person pleading guilty to a lesser offence or to only one or some of the counts of a multicount indictment in return for a lighter sentence than that possible for the graver charge'.