THE EARLY GUILTY PLEA DISCOUNT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

THE EARLY GUILTY PLEA DISCOUNT - Essay Example It also determines whether such discounts in any way create a penalty for offenders who plead not guilty thus exercising their right to trial. A sentencing discount refers to a particular reduction that is normally quantifiable and relating to a discrete factor and which the court apply after taking all other considerations of sentencing into account. They relate to post-offence conduct on offender’s part. An individual who has committed a criminal offense has some options in responding to accusations made against him or her. The rules of criminal procedure in a court of law allow an offender to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty and if the offender fails to enter any plea, the court enters a plea of not guilty on for the offender and then begins the trial (Howie, 2008). There has been heavy contest on the levels, aspects and the extent of discounting sentences for defendants who plead guilty. In the recent years, the Australia high court has also weighed in on the debate. It is a statutory requirement in Queensland that the court should take into account a guilty plea and if the court fails to reduce a sentence; it must state its reasons. However, if it reduces the sentence, it is not obliged to state what the definite reduction in sentence was. Actually, even without remorse, the court holds that there should be reduction in sentence. It has also been a requirement for a court to point out the way in which it is reducing a sentence, if it is reducing it as a following the plea. It may achieve a reduction by recommending an early parole. In determining sentence for the offence, a fact of unaccepted offer to plead guilty is relevant (Freiberg, 2006). Following the concern of the discrimination that two elemental notions in sentencing engendered, justices Callinan, Gaudron and Gummow had a joint judgment. They observed the