You may have a lot of questions and uncertainties if you are facing criminal charges for the first time in your life, and one of the big questions you may have may relate to a plea bargain the court offers you. A plea bargain is something courts commonly use in criminal cases, and you should not be surprised if the court offers one to you. Here are some of the main reasons courts do this.

To save time

The first thing to understand about a criminal case is that it takes time. When you are charged with a crime, it can often take months or years for the case to work through the court systems. Courts are busy places, as they have a lot of duties to handle. Each case the court receives adds to its workload, and courts can easily become overburdened when there are so many cases open.

For a court to save time, it will look for ways to reduce the number of cases it currently has, and one of the easiest ways to do this is by offering plea bargains. When the court offers a plea bargain to a person facing criminal charges, the case will soon be over if the person accepts the offer. This will free up time in the court, and this is one of the main reasons you should expect to receive a plea bargain offer from the local court handling your case.

To close a case with a conviction

A second benefit the court has when criminals accept plea bargains is closed cases with convictions. When a person accepts a plea bargain, the case will be closed, and the court will have a guilty verdict. The charges the person agrees to accept through the plea bargain will typically be less severe than the original charges. This is the incentive offered through a plea bargain, and this is one of the reasons a lot of alleged criminals accept the offers from the court.

To save money

Finally, courts will offer plea bargains to save money. Each case costs money, and the court system functions on tax dollars. To save the tax payers money, courts offer plea bargains. When these are accepted by the alleged criminals, the court spends less money.

If you are facing any type of criminal charge, you might get a plea bargain offer from the court. If you do, talk to your criminal defense lawyer about it to find out what you should do. If you have not yet hired a lawyer, look for a good criminal defense lawyer today.