NCJ Number
148173
Date Published
1994
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This bulletin presents statistics on criminal appeals made to the British Crown Court against magistrates' sentences and those made to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) against Crown Court sentences in 1992 by result for appeals against conviction, appeals against sentence, and appeals against both conviction and sentence.
Abstract
The "rate of appeal" against magistrates' sentences in 1992 remained at 0.7 percent. Against Crown Court sentences, it fell by 1 percent to approximately 7 percent. Thus, over 99 percent of those found guilty at magistrates' courts and 93 percent of those found guilty at the Crown Court did not appeal. In 1992, there were almost 16,000 known appeals against magistrates' decisions to the Crown Court and approximately 7,000 to the Court of Appeal against Crown Court decisions (up from 6,300 in 1991). The success rate of appeals against sentence was 51 percent at the Crown Court and 25 percent at the Court of Appeal. The proportion of successful appeals against convictions made to the Crown Court increased from 25 percent in 1985 to 38 percent in 1992, the same as in 1991. Sixteen percent of appellants to the Court of Appeal had their convictions quashed, an increase of 3 percent over 1991 and 7 points higher than in 1986. The main indictable offense groups for which appeals were made were theft and handling of stolen goods, violence against the person, and burglary. The types of offenses that showed the greatest increase in number of appeals in the Crown Court in 1992 were criminal damage (up from 76 in 1991 to 329 in 1992) and theft and handling of stolen goods (up from 920 to 1,296). 3 figures and 14 tables