The Timing of Guilty Pleas
Lessons from Common Law Jurisdictions

A detailed study of the importance of the timing of guilty pleas and its effects across different legal jurisdictions.

Kevin Cheng (Author)

9781009158602, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 January 2023

230 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.8 cm, 0.49 kg

'A timely, compelling, and richly sourced scrutiny of this salient issue.' Enshen Li, Asian Journal of Comparative Law

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.

1. Introduction: the history of the problem of 'Cracked Trials'
2. The sliding scale of sentence discounts
3. Implicit (and explicit) plea bargaining
4. Revisiting the assumptions and methodology
5. Factors affecting the timing of guilty pleas
6. Trial and late-plea penalties
7. Consistency in applying sentence discounts
8. Public opinion and sentence discounts
9. Conclusion
Index.

Subject Areas: Criminology: legal aspects [LAR], Comparative law [LAM], Psychology [JM]