Legal Question in Criminal Law in Virginia

Re: criminal law

A cap or upper limit can be placed on a defedant's sentence usually as a result of plea negotiations between such defendant's attorney and the prosecutor. In such cases, the defendant under the statute which he's charged with violating could actually receive a far longer sentence than what the prosecutor is proposing to "cap" at a lower number.

However, obviously not every case qualifies for this kind of consideration and there are many where the prosecution declines to agree to this kind of disposition or it's simply unwarranted under the relevant statute itself.