What is an example of a case involving no factoral dispute?

Question

I was very curious if there are any.

Answer 1

This happens quite frequently actually. I'll give an example in the form of a hypothetical:

The police recieve a tip that drugs are being sold out of a particular house. Acting on the tip, officers obtain a search warrant. Upon searching the house, they find 100 lbs of marijuana packaged for sale. They also find one guy named Bob in the residence in the act of counting money and packaging the stuff. Bob admits that it's marijuana and admits that he has been selling it after receiving a Miranda Warning.

Under these circumstances, Bob would be stupid to pay a lawyer thousands of dollars to take this case to trial. A jury will certainly find Bob guilty. And a jury trial is very, very expensive for Bob.

[In case you don't know, only a jury decides whether a defendant is guilty or innocent (unless the defendant wants a judge to decide that); and only a judge hears "motions," which are requests that the court take certain actions such as dismissing the case.]

So Bob's lawyer makes a motion, before the trial, to throw out the evidence against Bob and dismiss the case claiming that the search warrant the police used to get into the house violated Bob's constitutional rights. In most states, however, the defense cannot make such a motion until AFTER the defendant is found guilty at trial. So how does Bob get to make his motion without actually going to trial where he will waste his money, the court's time, and likely end up in jail immediately?

He first waives his right to a jury trial and asks the judge to decide his guilt or innocence based upon the facts as they happened. Both the prosecution and the defense agree that Bob was caught preparing marijuana for sale (no factoral dispute). Bob knows he will be found guilty. However, he reserves his right to appeal the judge's decision about the search warrant. So once the judge finds him guilty, he files an appeal based upon his original motion and (usually) stays out of jail while the appeal is pending. For Bob, this procedure at least gives him a chance of getting his case dismissed on appeal when he would have certainly been convicted at a jury trial. And that's it in a nutshell.

Answer 2

A case in which a defendant pleads guilty from the very start has no factoral dispute, because there is no need.