Roberts, JV and Pina Sanchez, J orcid.org/0000-0002-9416-6022 (2021) Sentence Reductions for a Guilty Plea: The Impact of the Revised Guideline on Rates of Pleas and 'Cracked Trials'. Journal of Criminal Law. ISSN 0022-0183
Abstract
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.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2021. This is an author produced version of an article, published in Journal of Criminal Law. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Guilty pleas, cracked trials, criminal procedure, sentence reductions for a guilty plea |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Law (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 06 Aug 2021 11:35 |
Last Modified: | 18 Sep 2021 01:11 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/00220183211041912 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:176852 |