Sentence Reductions for a Guilty Plea in England and Wales: Exploring New Empirical Trends

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian V. Roberts ◽  
Ben Bradford
Keyword(s):  
England And Wales ◽  
Guilty Plea ◽  
Sentence Reductions

scholarly journals Conviction by Consent? Vulnerability, Autonomy and Conviction by Guilty Plea

2019 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca K Helm
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Criminal Conviction ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Guilty Plea ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Full Trial

A criminal conviction resulting from a guilty plea rather than a full trial is typically justified on the basis that the defendant had the ability to go to trial but instead chose to admit guilt in exchange for a small sentence reduction. In other words, the conviction, and associated waiver of rights, occurred by consent. In this article, I challenge that notion by drawing on psycho-legal research on vulnerability and consent and research on guilty pleas in the USA. I suggest that while plea procedure in England and Wales appears less coercive than the practice of ‘plea bargaining’ in the United States, aspects of the system are highly problematic and are likely to be leading to non-consensual guilty pleas, through which innocent defendants are pleading guilty.

scholarly journals Sentence reductions for a guilty plea: The impact of the revised guideline on rates of pleas and ‘cracked trials’

2021 ◽  
pp. 002201832110419
Author(s):  
Julian V. Roberts ◽  
Jose Pina-Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Court System ◽  
Criminal Process ◽  
Guilty Plea ◽  
Sentencing Guideline ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Sentence Reductions

In 2017, the Sentencing Council introduced a revised guideline for plea-based sentence reductions. The revisions were designed to provide greater certainty and to accelerate the timing of guilty pleas. Late pleas resulting in ‘cracked trials’ have long been a problem in the court system. The guideline was not intended to change the rate of defendants who plead guilty, but rather to increase the percentage of pleas entered early in the criminal process. This brief article reports findings from an analysis of data from the Crown Court before and after the introduction of the revised sentencing guideline. Findings reveal that the overall guilty plea remained stable over the period 2014–2019. The guideline appears to have had no effect on the timing of guilty pleas entered, and in fact the percentage of ‘cracked’ trials rose in the post-guideline period.

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