Denver criminal defense lawyer / no contest pleas

A big part of the job for a Denver criminal defense lawyer is figuring out what kind of plea is best for his client. The most important consideration, obviously, has to do with punishment. The semantics don't matter to the client: what the defendant cares most about is (in order of priority): (1) his freedom (2) his freedom (3) his criminal record (4) his money (5) appearance of impropriety. Of course, that hasn't stopped the courts from making a big deal out of number five. In that vein, there is this thing called a "nolo contendere) plea for a Denver criminal defense lawyer and his client to contemplate. Basically, what that means is the defendant can plead guilty, subject himself to sentencing, but not actually plead guilty. It's called "no contest."

The defendant concedes that the prosecution "likely has enough evidence to convict him," and then he is sentenced as if he were guilty. The U.S. Supreme Court sort of sanctioned this behavior in North Carolina v. Alford, but was pretty ambiguous as far as actually defining it.
Throughout its history, that is, the plea of nolo contendere has been viewed not as an express admission of guilt but as a consent by the defendant that he may be punished as if he were guilty and a prayer for leniency. Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 11 preserves this distinction in its requirement that a court cannot accept a guilty plea “unless it is satisfied that there is a factual basis for the plea”; there is no similar requirement for pleas of nolo contendere, since it was thought desirable to permit defendants to plead nolo without making any inquiry into their actual guilt. See Notes of Advisory Committee to Rule 11.

Of course this goes against everything that guilty pleas and the system should stand for: that we only convict and punish the factually guilty. Ultimately, there is very little difference between a guilty plea, and a good defense attorney would be a fool to put any real emphasis on it in the vast majority of cases.