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N.Y. CPL Law § 340.20

This is the official text of N.Y. CPL Law § 340.20, part of New York’s CPL Law — part of the compiled statutory law of New York, published by the state as "CPL Law." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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The plea

Official statutory text

§ 340.20 The plea.\n 1. Except as provided in subdivisions two and three, the provisions\nof article two hundred twenty, governing the kinds of pleas to\nindictments which may be entered and related matters, are, to the extent\nthat they can be so applied, applicable to pleas to informations, and\nchanges of pleas thereto, in local criminal courts.\n 2. A plea to an information, other than one against a corporation,\nmust be entered in the following manner:\n (a) Subject to the provisions of paragraph (b), a plea to an\ninformation must be entered orally by the defendant in person unless the\ncourt permits entry thereof by counsel upon the filing by him of a\nwritten and subscribed statement by the defendant declaring that he\nwaives his right to plead to the information in person and authorizing\nhis attorney to enter a plea on his behalf as set forth in the\nauthorization.\n (b) If the only offense or offenses charged are traffic infractions,\nthe procedure provided in sections eighteen hundred five, eighteen\nhundred six and eighteen hundred seven of the vehicle and traffic law,\nrelating to pleas in such cases, is, when appropriate, applicable and\ncontrolling.\n 3. A plea to an information against a corporation must be entered by\ncounsel.\n 4. When a sentence is agreed upon by the prosecutor and a defendant as\na predicate to entry of a plea of guilty, the court or the prosecutor\nmust orally on the record, or in writing filed with the court, state the\nsentence agreed upon as a condition of such plea.\n

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.