Plea reduction

Plea reduction in Thailand is not the negotiated plea-bargaining model familiar from U.S. or English-Commonwealth criminal procedure. There is no formal pre-trial agreement between prosecutor and defence; there is no judge-supervised colloquy that records the consideration offered. Instead, §78 invites the court to halve the sentence after the fact when the defendant has confessed — most often at the first procedural opportunity. The defence has no enforceable right to a specific discount; the upper bound is one-half, the floor is zero, and the practical outcome turns on the seriousness of the offence and the judge's view of the confession's utility.