Legal Question in Criminal Law in Michigan

It means that you are not contesting the charges.

For information on Michigan criminal procedure, go to:

www.AggressiveCriminalDefense.com

No contest means that you are not contesting the charges and can only be used as a plea in very limited circumstances (and at the judge's discretion). The plea is still treated as if you had plead guilty and the person making such a plea would be treated at sentencing the same as if that person had plead guilty. http://www.wolverinelaw.com

The court rules allow a court to take a no contest plea (or "nolo contendere" plea) when the defendant lacks memory of the crime and therefore cannot give a verbal recitation of his acts during a guilty plea ... or when there is a possible civil lawsuit where the defendant's guitly plea could be used against him, so this process shields him for a civil plaintiff using his guilty-plea words as admissions in the civil case. This process can NOT be used "because the defendant doesn't want to say what he did"; it is not used to avoid his embarrassment for admitting in open court to what he did. In a no contest plea, another source of facts (usually the police report or portions of it, but sometimes even witness testimony) is given to the judge in lieu of the defendant's spoken words to tell what happened so the judge can decide of he is guilty under the facts. If so, then the judge can convict the defendant via this no-contest plea and sentence him as if a jury convicted him or he admitted in his own words what he did. A no contest plea results in the same kind of conviction and sentence ... it's just a different way of getting there.