How Do You Plead? Pleading Guilty or Not Guilty to an Offence

Pleading guilty or not guilty to a charge is the most significant decision you can make as a person accused of a criminal offence. Your plea will affect how long it takes for the court to resolve your case, the strategies to be adopted in your case and even whether you will face a conviction.

Unless they agree that they are responsible for absolutely everything about an allegation, the accused should think very carefully about pleading guilty without getting legal advice about the plea.

This is because pleading guilty means you are admitting in Court that you did the thing which you have been charged with, in exactly the way police say it happened. IIf you dispute this or otherwise do not admit it, then you should consider pleading not guilty. It is not your job to prove you are innocent. It is far harder to withdraw a plea of guilty and change it to not guilty than it is to change you plea to guilty at a later stage should it be in your interests to do so.

It is the prosecution’s job to prove you are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the offence with which you have been charged. You do not have to admit anything, and you have the fundamental inalienable right to have the allegations tried in a Court of law.

It’s important to ensure you understand your charge or charges, take advice from your lawyer, and make an informed decision about how you will plead. Here are some things you must know about pleading guilty.

A person can plead guilty for various reasons. Perhaps they do not want the matter to drag on in court, or they do not wish for witnesses to need to provide evidence on their behalf. The law is clear that pleading guilty means taking legal responsibility for the conduct you are admitting through your plea of guilty.



A guilty plea amounts to a formal confession of the facts of the offence as presented by the prosecution. According to Justices Dawson and McHugh, in an often-quoted High Court case, a guilty plea must not “[be] made in circumstances suggesting that it is not a true admission of guilt.”

A person under duress or fear for their life is not genuine in their admission, according to the justices. The same is true for a person who wants to plead guilty to receive some sort of  technical advantage.

Similarly, a person who does not understand some aspects of the charge or who feels that they have a reasonable defence to certain parts should not plead guilty. Your criminal lawyer should be able to advise you regarding the confusing or ambiguous particulars.

When an accused pleads guilty, they may get a discount of up to 25 percent on their sentence. It’s possible it may make the difference between serving time and staying outside prison. Furthermore, a guilty plea may bring you a step closer to a non-conviction order, which may improve your chances of obtaining security clearances for work or travel.



The Courts give this “discount” on a penalty for pleading guilty because justice is better served when the community spends less time and money on criminal justice and instead focuses on restorative or rehabilitation programs.

The accused’s plea is the most important decision he makes in a criminal case. Note that a lawyer cannot assure you of a particular result because you pleaded guilty or not guilty. That said, a skilled criminal lawyer knows the rules of the criminal law game and knows that usually one should only plead guilty if it is absolutely 100% in their interests to do so.

Get high quality, deliberately different legal representation from the Andrew Byrnes Law Group. Our skilled Canberra criminal defence lawyers will assist you in all ways possible, helping you get the result you need. Get in touch with us today for a free consultation