Q: Can a judge instruct prosecution to use a withdrawn guilty plea against me in court if I wish to continue to trial?
Judge instructed prosecution to use my plea against me if I wished to go to trial shortly after I withdrew the plea. As I was about to walk out of court, my public defender and the prosecution team told me I should go forward with the plea, and the judge would suspend time off my sentence when doing so. So I plead and the judge didn't suspend any time.
A: This is something that happens quite a good bit. Unfortunately, even though the prosecution and the defender may agree to a particular recommendation, the judge is not required to accept that recommendation. Usually, during the plea hearing, the judge will ask a series of questions to make sure that a person understands that, to include a question as to whether a defendant has been promised a particular result.
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