You avoid the attorney fees associated with taking your criminal case to trial.

In contrast, if you pled guilty, your plea could be used against you as an admission of fault in a civil case and increase the likelihood that you will owe compensation to the victim. This is the biggest advantage of this plea and can be important if you caused a car accident resulting in a person’s injury or death, injured someone in an assault, or shot someone. If you plead no contest, your plea cannot be used against you in a civil action filed by any victim who suffered injuries due to your actions.What would be the benefit of pleading no contest instead of guilty? Important advantages to this plea include: However, a person is not admitting legal responsibility for the incident. A no-contest plea in North Carolina is a plea where a person does not admit or dispute the charges against him and has the same effect as a guilty plea in terms of sentencing. In many criminal cases, a person will start out by pleading not guilty and then change his plea to guilty later if he enters into a plea agreement.ĭepending on your situation, it could be in your best interest to not plead guilty and instead enter a no contest plea or an Alford plea when resolving your case. You have several choices of pleas that you can enter in your criminal case. Here, we explain what a no contest plea is and the benefits of entering this plea. One option that some people choose when entering into a plea agreement or entering a plea other than a plea of not guilty is to plead no contest-also referred to as nolo contendere-instead of guilty. How you plead can have important consequences both in your criminal case and life in general because a conviction will result in you having a permanent criminal record. If you are charged with a crime in North Carolina, you will have to decide what plea to enter to the charges.

Plead not guilty meaning