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

210 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.8 cm, 0.49 kg

'The Timing of Guilty Pleas represents an outstanding contribution to the international literature not only on guilty pleas, plea bargaining but on criminal justice process more generally. Clearly structured with a thought-provoking and critical edge, it offers invaluable knowledge and guidance to scholars, students, as well as policy officials and practitioners across the world.' Cyrus Tata, Ph.D., FRSA, Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of Strathclyde, Scotland

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]