Law Weblog
R v Goodyear [2005] CA
Saturday 23 April 2005 at 9:49 am | In News | 2 Comments[Sentencing – indication on sentence following guilty plea]
D pleaded guilty to an offence of corruption and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, despite the judge saying to his barrister at a meeting in his chambers before the trial began that he took the view that “this is not a custody case”.
Held: (by a five judge court) The judge should have followed the indication he gave. Crown courts (not magistrates’ courts) need no longer follow the rule in R v Turner (that a judge should not indicate the sentence that he might impose if D pleaded guilty). But, the indication must be sought by the defendant (7 day’s notice in writing) and then it would not amount to “improper pressure on him”.
Whole case here
Comment: This could mean that there will be an increase in the number of guilty pleas and effectively means that defendants will now see this as an opportunity to “plea-bargain”
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Powered by WordPress with Pool theme design by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
Valid XHTML and CSS. ^Top^
Hi, last week the 25/12/08 I appeared at Crown Court charged with an offence of deception, I have declared my inocence in the matter since the time of being charged.
At Court after various legal arugument before the jury being sworn in, the Judge asked of the CPS Prosecutor how long he estimated the case would last, the reply was 4-5 days maybe longer.
The Judge turned to my legal representative and said that if his client were to consider changing his plead to that of Guilty, then a non custodial sentence would be imposed,however if he miantained his position and was found guilty, an immediate custodal sentence would be imposed.
I had great faith in my defence, but was advised by my legal representative that although a Goodyear indication had not been requested by either the Prosecution ot the defence, the Judge had in his wisdom offerred a compremise which I should consider, given that juries are at best 50/50 option when coming to a decision.
I have been a lwa enforcement officer most of my life, my wife at the age of 57 years had recently passsed due to Ovarian Cancer, and my youngest son just turned 19 years was faced with the prospect of his Father, with no previous convictions going to prison a few weeks before Christmas.
I reluctantly pleaded guilty to the offence to avoid the possibity of an immediate custodal sentence,and was sentenced to 6 months imprisonment suspended for 1 year, and costs of £400.
This matter is only 7 days since sentencing and already I’m finding it difficult to live with my pressured decision in pleading guilty, albeit done for the right reasons.
Would you please urgently advise me, if the Judge which I feel in my opinion brought improper pressure on myself in agreeing to such a plead, ther being no indication seeked , or requested by any party to the case, either in writing or verbally.
Additionally what is the situation whereby the Judge has indicated an imediate custidial sentence of no specfic time indication, and then makes a specific suspended sentence of six months imprisonment.
Would you please adivse urgently.
Regards Mike Hoar 2/12/08
Comment by Michael Hoar — Tuesday 2 December 2008 9:23 am #
Tough, live with it, it was your choice, now you know how it felt when you arrested and charged innocent people and put them under the same pressures and gained a conviction through fear not evidence.
No one can make you pleasd guilty to an offence you did not commit, you can not blackmail an innocent man
Comment by Garry Williams — Monday 15 November 2010 7:16 pm #