ABSTRACT
It is a fundamental principle of Nigeria criminal justice system that an accused person is presumed innocent until otherwise proven guilty by a competent court or tribunal as recognized by law in Nigeria. This foregoing principle in consonance with other persuasive and compelling arguments has greeted the reception of plea bargaining by dissident critics of the concept. However, despite the dissenting arguments and criticism of the concept, there seems to be an equally stacked cogent and credible arguments in Favour of the relative good and expediency the concept of plea bargaining can bring to the administration of any criminal justice system world over. Thus, making the concept a relative tool for either justice or injustice(corruption) depending on the disposition of the authority on whose hands it fall.
The concept of plea bargaining has an obscure historical origin. Claims of plea bargaining has been held to have been practiced behind closed doors by prosecuting lawyers with defense counsels and the defendant, despite it hitherto want of legal recognition. The modern practice of plea bargaining is traceable to the American criminal justice system, particularly from the later stages of the 20th century. The concept of plea bargaining has enjoyed rich exegesis by both lawyers, jurist and scholars alike. Particularly, professors PATRICK R. ANDERSON AND DONALD J. NEWMAN in their book “introduction to criminal justice” explained plea bargaining as a process in which guilty plea are induced through negotiations between the prosecutor and the defense counsel and sometimes by the judge as well, where the defendant pleads guilty to reduced charges in exchange for a lenient sentence, that is, a lighter sentence than the judge would have given after conviction at trial. Other definitions bound, which generally denote the negotiation of guilty pleas where the defendant pleads guilty to a reduced charge in Favour of a lighter sentence than the originally proposed charge had the case proceeded to a full blown trial.
The introduction of this concept into our criminal justice system in Nigeria has received mixed signals, ranging from the social stratification of its inherent virtues of expediency and cost savings/ case load reduction advantages to the already overburdened case loads at the criminal courts in Nigeria, to its amenable nature of being pervasively exploited to perpetuate injustice and corruption in the saturatively stricken corruption stratosphere of the Nigeria criminal Justice milieu. The latter will be given much scholarly attention by this researcher to justify the true essence of the reception of this concept into Nigeria criminal justice system whilst providing possible recommendations in ensuring adequate, efficient and proper utility of this concept to assuage the general feeling of distrust already conceived for the reception of the concept of plea bargaining in Nigeria criminal justice system.
