NCJ Number
169719
Date Published
1997
Length
44 pages
Annotation
Adjournments in 25 magistrates' courts in England and Wales were studied to determine the main sources of delays.
Abstract
In addition, magistrates and justices' clerks were interviewed in 12 of the 25 courts to determine their opinions on the causes of delay and to find out how they tried to avoid unnecessary adjournments. Results revealed that the most frequent reason for an adjournment was that either the prosecution or the defense was not ready to proceed. Together, these situations accounted for 54 percent of the adjournments. The defense had not received advance disclosure of the prosecution case in 6 percent of the cases. Five percent of adjournments occurred because legal aid had not been decided. Ten percent of adjournments occurred because further information such as a pre-sentence report or a medical report was required for sentencing. The magistrates doubted that sentence discounts in return for guilty pleas provided enough incentive for defendants to plead guilty at an early stage. Seven of the 12 courts where interviews were held had introduced pretrial reviews to reduce adjournments, whereas one court had abandoned pretrial reviews because it had become simply another appearance in which the trial date was fixed. Courts had also developed varied listing methods to schedule and manage cases. Seven of the 12 courts were interviews took place filled gaps in court activity by means of a floating list of traffic cases in which the defendant had pleaded guilty by mail. Tables, footnotes, list of other Home Office publications, and 9 references