Legal Question in Criminal Law in Kentucky

Re: alpha plea

You're probably referring to an "Alford plea", which gets its name from a US Supreme Court case.

In an Alford plea, the defendant pleads guilty without admitting any of the facts in the indictment to be true; he merely acknowledges that the evidence is sufficient to convict him and that he wishes to plead guilty and take the offer from the Commonwealth.

The advantage to this (other than the purely psychological one of not admitting anything) is that the criminal guilty plea cannot be used against the defendant in any subsequent civil case to prove his guilt.

The Commonwealth must agree to it, and the Court must accept it.