As a result, many people have agreed to guilty pleas that unnecessarily resulted in deportation.
But the president seems unwilling to do anything but issue pleas that fall on deaf ears.
He said it "contains powerful incentives to induce pleas that yield long sentences and gain intelligence".
These were victory songs, rather than the impassioned pleas that have been heard at other times.
The first reaction is shock and horror, followed quickly by demands and pleas that something be done.
Every year for more than a decade, Brinkley recounts, donor organizations and states made toothless pleas that Hun Sen pass an anticorruption law.
The military justice system does not allow a guilty plea in a death penalty case, but it does allow pleas that will lead to a lesser punishment.
In Mr. Champion's case, 15 members were charged with manslaughter or felony hazing; seven so far have accepted pleas that include probation and community service.
"The decision upholds hundreds of guilty pleas that otherwise might have been challenged," said Darren Dopp, a spokesman for Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer.
An article in Business Day yesterday about guilty pleas that were expected from three former executives of Computer Associates misspelled the name of the lawyer representing David Kaplan.
There's the view that praying to, or even touching, a remnant of a holy person makes your pleas that much more likely to reach the top of God's to-do list.
