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2 results

  • 6 - Trial and Late-Plea Penalties

  • Kevin Cheng, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • Book:
    The Timing of Guilty Pleas
    Published online:
    22 December 2022
    Print publication:
    05 January 2023, pp 120-147

  • Summary

    Existing literature points to guilty pleas leading to plea-trial disparity in sentences, with scholars referring to this as a ‘trial penalty’ or a ‘trial/jury tax’, while courts and policymakers use the terms ‘sentence discounts’ or ‘sentence reductions’. This chapter argues that plea trial and plea-timing disparities have negative consequences for the justice system, as well as that the sentence disparity should be conceptualised as a trial and late-plea penalty. Using the datasets from the Crown Court Sentencing Survey (CCSS) and the Hong Kong District Court compiled for this study, this chapter investigates the effects that the timing of guilty pleas may have on sentence outcomes. Interestingly, a late-plea penalty was found for England and Wales, whereas only a trial penalty was found for Hong Kong. The chapter concludes by discussing the implications of these results.

The Timing of Guilty Pleas
  • Lessons from Common Law Jurisdictions
  • Kevin Cheng
  • Published online:
    22 December 2022
    Print publication:
    05 January 2023
  • While guilty pleas are the primary mode of criminal case dispositions across different legal jurisdictions, this topic remains an understudied area. The assumption is that defendants are 'playing the system' and that a sliding scale of sentence discounts is necessary to encourage early guilty pleas, which offer utilitarian benefits of efficiency. These assumptions lack a solid empirical foundation. This book offers a comprehensive investigation of how the timing of guilty pleas affects various facets of the criminal process, from the factors that affect this timing, to the effects that the sliding scale of sentence discounts have on sentences and public opinions about them. It also draws comparisons between Western and Asian legal systems, specifically those of England and Wales and Hong Kong. This book is addressed to scholars, legal practitioners, policymakers and those interested in criminal justice, socio-legal studies and empirical legal research.