Book Review: The timing of guilty pleas: Lesson from common law jurisdictions by Cheng, K.

• Published date: 01 March 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10575677231197754
• Author: Ann-Marie Helou
• Date: 01 March 2024

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00278.x

Cheng, K. (2023). The timing of guilty pleas: Lesson from common law jurisdictions. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. 208 pp. ISBN 978-1-009-15860-2 (Hardback), CAD $126.95/US$95.96.

Reviewed by: Ann-Marie Helou,McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

DOI: 10.1177/10575677231197754

In Hong Kong, England, and Wales, guilty pleas have long overtaken trials as the predominant

way criminal cases are adjudicated. Since the 1990s, guidelines on sentencing discounts for guilty

pleas have existed in both jurisdictions. Over time, however, policymakers started focusing on

when defendants plead guilty and how it could be expedited. In his book, The Timing of Guilty

Pleas: Lessons From Common Law Jurisdictions, Kevin Kwok-yin Cheng looks to explore the ratio-

nales, assumptions, and realities of the move toward quantif‌ied sliding scales for the reduction of sen-

tences based on the timing of guilty pleas (henceforth sliding scales). In doing so, Cheng challenges

two fundamental justif‌ications for sliding scales in both locales. The f‌irst posits that defendants are

looking to “play the system”and delay their plea to f‌igure out the best possible outcome for them-

selves. The second justif‌ication concerns the utilitarian benef‌its of pleading early, namely saving the

court time and taxpayer money, shortening the time it takes to complete court proceedings, saving

victims the trauma of testifying, and increasing public conf‌idence through fast and eff‌icient trials.

The challenges to these assumptions are vital. As Cheng states early in the book, these assertions

about the defendants and subsequent utilitarian benef‌its are not founded on empirical work. As such,

Cheng uses data from the Court Sentencing Survey in England and Wales and a novel data set

extracted from “Reason for Sentence”reports in Hong Kong to provide a “comprehensive investiga-

tion of how the timing of guilty pleas affects various facets of the criminal process, from the factors

that affect this timing to the effects that the sliding scale of sentence discounts have on sentences and

public opinions about them”(p. 18). The importance of this book is not just in the empirical inves-

tigation of sliding scales, but how Cheng demonstrates the need for a holistic approach to sentencing

or risk prioritizing a streamlined but ineff‌icient and unfair justice system. This is a recurring theme

throughout the book, as the reader is shown through Cheng’s own analyses and related research how

discounts associated with the timing of the plea can create undue pressure on defendants to plead

guilty either because they cannot afford to take time away from family and work to go through

the court process or because they risk losing the better discount if they wait to be advised. Due

process is threatened, and there is an increased chance that innocents plead guilty to not risk a

trial going against them.

The book itself can be divided into two parts. The f‌irst part comprises chapters one through three

and can be viewed as a broad literature review of England and Wales and Hong Kong with minor

references to other common law jurisdictions. Each chapter logically f‌lows into the next. Chapter

one provides a solid foundation for the book, alluding to the potential problems associated with sen-

tencing discounts for early guilty pleas and associated government rhetoric in justifying such poli-

cies. Chapter two provides an excellent historical analysis of sentencing and guilty pleas in both

locales, citing key court cases that respectively shaped each sentencing and guilty plea model.

Book Reviews89