Should one write: (1) "Last week the defendant plead guilty to assault"; (2) "Last week the defendant pleaded guilty to assault"; or (3) "Last week the defendant pled guilty to assault"?
My practice has always been to make the meaning as unambiguous as possible. In written form, choice (1) is horribly ambiguous, and choice (3), to my eyes at least, looks weird. It just does, and I know it's probably an irrational, visceral reaction. It just doesn't look like a whole word. Moreover, (2) is completely risk-free as to meaning, so why not just write "pleaded" and be done with it?
But that's written. In spoken form, I'll always go with choice (3), "pled". When spoken, it sounds right: "he pled guilty", whereas "he pleaded guilty" intrinsically (again, my ears) sounds like a wasted, pretentious syllable.
Next witness?
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