What is the plea agreement of article 801 LECrim
A plea agreement (conformidad) is the acceptance by the accused, assisted by counsel, of the facts, the legal classification and the penalty requested by the prosecution, allowing judgment to be delivered without a trial. In the Spanish fast-trial procedure(arts. 795 ff. LECrim), article 801 adds a unique incentive: if the accused enters the plea before the duty court itself, the judge immediately delivers a plea-based judgment and imposes the requested penalty reduced by one third. This is the so-called "rewarded plea": the only one where the reduction is fixed by statute rather than by negotiation.
The judgment is delivered orally and, if the prosecutor and the parties state their decision not to appeal, the judge declares it final at the same hearing and, where the penalty imposed is custodial, rules on its suspension or substitution (art. 801.2 LECrim). The whole case can be closed within hours of the arrest or the summons.
The three requirements of article 801.1 LECrim
1. No private prosecution and an accusation brief filed by the prosecutor
The first requirement demands that no private prosecution has been constituted, that the Public Prosecutor has requested the opening of the oral trial and that, once ordered by the duty judge, the prosecutor has filed the accusation brief at the same hearing. If the victim has joined the proceedings as a private prosecutor, the plea before the duty court is unavailable; however, article 801.5 then allows the accused to enter, in the defense brief, a plea to the most serious of the accusations.
2. Offense punishable by up to three years of imprisonment, a fine, or another penalty of up to ten years
The second requirement looks at the penalty range set in the Criminal Code (CP) for the offense, not at the requested penalty: the facts must have been classified as an offense punishable by up to three years of imprisonment, by a fine of any amount, or by another penalty of a different nature not exceeding 10 years. The vast majority of offenses processed as fast trials fall within these limits: road-safety offenses, less serious injuries, thefts, breaches of protection orders or criminal damage, among others.
3. The requested prison term, reduced by one third, cannot exceed two years
The third requirement applies only to custodial penalties: the requested penalty — or the sum of the requested penalties — reduced by one third, must not exceed two years of imprisonment. In practice this means the prison term requested by the prosecutor cannot exceed three years, since three years minus one third is exactly two. This limit does not apply to fines or community service.
How the one-third reduction is calculated
The arithmetic is simple: the resulting penalty is two thirds of the requested penalty. A requested term of 18 months of imprisonment becomes 12 months; 9 months become 6. For fines, the usual approach — which this calculator follows for guidance only — is to reduce the temporal extension by one third while keeping the daily quota: a requested fine of 12 months at €6 per day becomes 8 months (240 days, art. 50.4 CP) and the total falls from €2,160 to €1,440. For community service the days are reduced: 60 requested days become 40.
Article 801.2 also contains an exceptional rule: the reduced penalty is imposed even where this means a penalty below the minimum limit provided in the CP for the offense. That is why the result of this calculator may legitimately fall below the statutory minimum, something that would not be possible outside this procedure.
Plea agreements and suspended prison sentences
If the resulting prison term does not exceed two years, a suspended sentence may be examined (arts. 80 to 87 CP), which requires assessing, among other conditions, that the convicted person is a first-time offender and the commitment to satisfy civil liability. Article 801.3 LECrim makes this examination easier in the fast-trial procedure: the accused's commitment to pay civil liability within the reasonable deadline set by the duty court suffices. Suspension is never automatic: it is a reasoned judicial decision studied case by case.
Pleas in the abbreviated procedure: no one-third reduction
Outside the fast-trial procedure there is no automatic statutory reduction. In the abbreviated procedure, after the reform introduced by Organic Law 1/2025, the ordinary plea is entered at the preliminary hearing regulated in article 785 LECrim: the parties may ask the court to deliver judgment in accordance with the most serious accusation brief, or with the one filed at that hearing, and the court verifies that the classification is correct and the penalty lawful. Any advantage for the accused depends on what is negotiated within the legal range of the penalty, but the law imposes no one-third reduction. That is why this calculator applies no reduction when the abbreviated procedure is selected.
What this calculator cannot tell you
The result always starts from the penalty requested by the prosecutor, which may change up to the very moment of the plea, and does not include ancillary penalties, driving bans or other consequences that accompany many convictions, nor civil liability, which is not reduced. Nor does it assess whether accepting a plea is advisable: pleading means waiving the trial and the chance to challenge the evidence, and only a professional analysis of the police report and the case file allows an informed decision. Always consult a criminal defense lawyer before deciding.