In court
| Published date | 01 June 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550513480326 |
| Date | 01 June 2013 |
| Subject Matter | In court |
In court
In court
Nigel Stone, Visiting Fellow in the School of Psychology, University of East Anglia,
reviews recent appeal judgments and other judicial developments that inform sen-
tencing and early release.
The broad theme emerging from this review concerns mitigation, whether arising
from the circumstances of the offence, plea or the defendant’s personal circum-
stances and stance towards their crime, and the corresponding dimension of
aggravation arising from the crime and the defendant’s offending history. The
judgments that follow illustrate the impact of such considerations on the custody
threshold test, the length of any imprisonment, sentencers’ preparedness to opt
away from immediate custody in favour of community intervention and the balan-
cing of competing considerations such as judicial belief in how the public interest is
best served and sensitivity to victims.
Credit for guilty plea
The long-standing practice of giving offenders pleading guilty credit by way of a sen-
tencing discount, adopting a slidingscale according to the timing and circumstances
of plea, part-reflected in s144 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 with reference to ‘the
stage in the proceedings... at which the offender indicated his intention to plead
guilty’, was given authoritative recognition and interpretation by the Sentencing
Guidelines Council (SGC) (since superseded by the Sentencing Council) in 2004
(updated in 2007). Given some uncertainty regarding the application of the relevant
Guideline, the Court of Appeal has recently dealt collectively with a cluster of other-
wise unrelated cases, as the opportunity to clarify theproper approach, pending fur-
ther consideration by the Council, thus offering greater awarenessof the implications
of plea decision-making to defendants and those who advise them.
Reiterating the familiar rationale for crediting plea, the Court identified firstly the
benefit for victims and witnesses who are spared the demands of giving evidence
and, in the case of the former, can draw some reassurance from the offender’s
acceptance of guilt. Secondly, guilty pleas save the time and cost of contested trials
and the preparation of the prosecution case. The Court then rehearsed the main
elements of the discount approach.
‘First reasonable opportunity.’ Noting that greatest credit (one-third discount) is
normally given to defendants who indicate their plea of guilty at the ‘first reasonable
Probation Journal
60(2) 203–216
ªThe Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/0264550513480326
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The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
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