NCJ Number
231313
Date Published
June 2010
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This study tested whether the legislative criminal case conferencing (CCC) trial scheme of the New South Wales District Criminal Court (Australia) had any impact on the number of late guilty pleas in courts affected by the legislation.
Abstract
The study found weak evidence that the CCC scheme achieved its stated objective of reducing the number of late guilty pleas. Only one of the four measures produced effects consistent with a reduction in late guilty pleas. There was a small decrease in trial registrations (less than 1 percent per week) in the intervention site, with no corresponding reduction in late guilty pleas in the comparison site. If all of this decrease was due to the CCC scheme, it would reflect a reduction of 23 trials in the year following the introduction of the CCC scheme. The key feature of the scheme requires representatives of the defense and prosecution to convene a compulsory conference prior to the committal hearing. The aim of CCC is to bring much of the plea negotiation between defense and prosecution forward in the process, rather than leaving it until the days or weeks before the trial begins. Under the CCC scheme, the utilitarian value of the plea (a reduced sentence compared to the sentence upon conviction at trial) is embedded in legislation. If the defendant pleads guilty prior to committal, the CCC legislation states that the sentencing court must allow a discount of up to 12.5 percent. This evaluation of the CCC's impact used a quasi-experimental research design whereby outcomes for matters affected by the legislation were compared with matters committed from all other New South Wales local courts. Interrupted time series analyses were used to test whether the scheme had any impact on four markers of late guilty pleas. 5 tables, 5 figures, 6 notes, and 1 reference