Consistency A related purpose of the scheme was to increase consistency, thereby strengthening confidence in the value of pleading guilty. Encouraging earlier guilty pleas To the extent that rewarding a guilty plea has a utilitarian benefit, an additional aim of the scheme was to ensure that this benefit was maximised by encouraging defendants who intend to plead guilty to do so at the earliest possible stage in the proceedings, without improperly inducing a guilty plea: Specifying the reduction in sentence available or given for a guilty plea is intended to encourage defendants who are intending to plead guilty to do so as early as possible without inducing or coercing defendants to change their plea decision on that account. The optimum result would be no change in the proportion of cases resolved by a guilty plea, but an increase in the proportion of guilty pleas entered at an early stage of the proceedings. Accountability and appellate review Another purpose of the stated sentence discount scheme was to increase accountability in the decision about the weight of the guilty plea. The Council anticipated that: If courts were to articulate the weight given to the guilty plea, appeal courts would have a clearer indication of the basis for imposing the sentence and therefore they would be better equipped to determine whether the sentencer had fallen into error. Since the scheme’s introduction, the Court of Appeal has made it clear that the: ‘notional’ sentence announced in accordance with s 6AAA is not part of the sentence imposed. No appeal lies in respect of the notional sentence. There were some early conflicting judicial statements as to the use that might be made of a 6AAA statement on appeal. It now seems settled that a 6AAA statement is generally not to be taken to exhibit error (that is, only in very narrow circumstances will a 6AAA statement be taken to exhibit error). For
Consistency A related purpose of the scheme was to increase consistency, thereby strengthening confidence in the value of pleading guilty. Encouraging earlier guilty pleas To the extent that rewarding a guilty plea has a utilitarian benefit, an additional aim of the scheme was to ensure that this benefit was maximised by encouraging defendants who intend to plead guilty to do so at the earliest possible stage in the proceedings, without improperly inducing a guilty plea: Specifying the reduction in sentence available or given for a guilty plea is intended to encourage defendants who are intending to plead guilty to do so as early as possible without inducing or coercing defendants to change their plea decision on that account. The optimum result would be no change in the proportion of cases resolved by a guilty plea, but an increase in the proportion of guilty pleas entered at an early stage of the proceedings. Accountability and appellate review Another purpose of the stated sentence discount scheme was to increase accountability in the decision about the weight of the guilty plea. The Council anticipated that: If courts were to articulate the weight given to the guilty plea, appeal courts would have a clearer indication of the basis for imposing the sentence and therefore they would be better equipped to determine whether the sentencer had fallen into error. Since the scheme’s introduction, the Court of Appeal has made it clear that the: ‘notional’ sentence announced in accordance with s 6AAA is not part of the sentence imposed. No appeal lies in respect of the notional sentence. There were some early conflicting judicial statements as to the use that might be made of a 6AAA statement on appeal. It now seems settled that a 6AAA statement is generally not to be taken to exhibit error (that is, only in very narrow circumstances will a 6AAA statement be taken to exhibit error). For
Guilty%20Pleas%20in%20the%20Higher%20Courts.docx