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There are three kinds of pleas in the American legal system: guilty, not guilty, and nolo contendere.
In this article we are going to focus on the nolo contendere plea. We will define the plea and explain what it means for speeding tickets.
What Does the Nolo Contendere Plea Mean?
Like many words in legalese, nolo contendere is latin. The translation is “I do not contend.” When you don’t plead nolo contendere to a traffic ticket, you are not saying that you’re not guilty. Of course, saying that you’re not not guilty isn’t the same as saying that you are guilty. There is a fine, fine line between nolo contendere pleas and guilty pleas.
When you plead guilty, you are accepting the penalties and taking responsibility for what you admit to having done in the way the charges say you’ve done it. When you plead nolo contendere, you are accepting the penalties but not taking responsibility for the crime. This might seem mild, but it has very serious legal advantages.
What Are the Advantages of Pleading Nolo Contendere
The most notable advantage of pleading nolo contendere is the effect it has on civil lawsuits. Civil suits are quite common following a criminal violation’s court proceedings. A great example is if you are ticketed for speeding and that same violation resulted in you getting into a car accident where somebody was injured. Here are two possibilities for how that would play out in court:
Option 1: Plead Guilty
If you plead guilty to the traffic ticket, then that guilty plea can be used as evidence against you during the subsequent civil suit. In other words, the suit will be starting with the assumption that you are guilty, a terrible place for you to start out in any courtroom situation.
Option 2: Plead Nolo Contendere
If you plead nolo contendere, the conviction for that speeding ticket cannot be used as evidence against you in the subsequent civil suit. Instead, the plaintiff or claimant will have to start their argument from scratch, as if the traffic ticket conviction never happened.
Can a Judge Reject Your Nolo Contendere Plea?
As you can tell from the advantages of a nolo contendere plea, they are much better than guilty pleas. So you might be wondering, “Why does anybody ever plead guilty when they can just plead nolo contendere?” Trust us when we say, the government has already thought of that.
Judges in many jurisdictions are allowed to reject your nolo contendere plea if they believe it fails to satisfy certain legal requirements. If the charges against you are brought in good faith and with probable cause, there are many judges who will not enforce the no contest clauses of specific plea agreements.
It is also possible for a judge to reject your plea if they believe you entered it without full knowledge of the charges or that you were coerced, bribed, or forced into signing it.
Does Pleading Nolo Contendere Affect Insurance Rates?
Yes, pleading nolo contendere will affect your insurance rates. Even though you are not admitting guilt, you are still accepting the penalties. Part of those penalties is having the ticket added to your record. That means insurance companies will be able to see it.
Insurance investigators don’t tend to look at the specifics of your plea arrangement when looking into your record. What matters to them is seeing what you’ve been convicted of. A conviction is a conviction. In other words, whether you plead guilty or nolo contendere, you will be facing the same exact insurance increases.
How Many Times Can You Use the Nolo Contendere Plea?
Like we said before, the government doesn’t want people pleading nolo contendere to every violation that comes across the bar. To make sure that people use nolo contendere pleas with temperance, most jurisdictions place limitations on how often you can use one.
For example, in Georgia, you can only plead nolo contendere to one violation every five years. You can plead guilty as often as you like, and the government would love that, but you only get one nolo contendere plea every 60 months.
When deciding whether now is the right time to plead nolo contendere, talk to a lawyer. Making a hasty or uninformed decision can result in you wasting your nolo contendere plea and having to wait years before being able to use one again.
Talk to a lawyer. Let them help guide you through the legal process while doing most of the legal heavy lifting for you. Download the WinIt app today and get started fighting your traffic tickets. Got a ticket? Take it to court and win it with WinIt.
