PLEA

Plea

In legal terms, a plea is simply an answer to a claim made by someone in a criminal case under common law using the adversarial system. Colloquially, a plea has come to mean the assertion by a defendant at arraignment, or otherwise in response to a criminal charge, whether that person pleaded guilty, not guilty, no contest or Alford plea.

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plea

Noun

  1. An appeal, petition, urgent prayer or entreaty.
    a plea for mercy
  2. An excuse; an apology.
    1667, Necessity, the tyrant’s plea. --, Paradise Lost IV.393
    No plea must serve; ‘t is cruelty to spare. -- .
  3. That which is alleged or pleaded, in defense or in justification.
  4. That which is alleged by a party in support of his cause.
  5. An allegation of fact in a cause, as distinguished from a demurrer.
  6. The defendant’s answer to the plaintiff’s declaration and demand.
  7. A cause in court; a lawsuit; as, the Court of Common Pleas. See under Common.
    The Supreme Judicial Court shall have cognizance of pleas real, personal, and mixed. --Laws of Massachusetts.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: plea
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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