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6 - Trial and Late-Plea Penalties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2022

Kevin Cheng
Affiliation:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
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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.

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Chapter
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The Timing of Guilty Pleas
Lessons from Common Law Jurisdictions
, pp. 120 - 147
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Trial and Late-Plea Penalties
  • Kevin Cheng, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • Book: The Timing of Guilty Pleas
  • Online publication: 22 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009158626.009
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  • Trial and Late-Plea Penalties
  • Kevin Cheng, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • Book: The Timing of Guilty Pleas
  • Online publication: 22 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009158626.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Trial and Late-Plea Penalties
  • Kevin Cheng, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • Book: The Timing of Guilty Pleas
  • Online publication: 22 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009158626.009
Available formats
×