All common law jurisdictions award sentence reductions to defendants who plead guilty. In England and Wales, Singapore, and some other guidelines’ jurisdictions, the sentence reductions are publicly available on sentencing council websites. Many civil law legal systems operate a conceptually similar mitigation to accused who accept responsibility for the offence charged. This arrangement is known as the ’penal order’ in Germany. Yet the practice of awarding plea-based sentence reductions remains controversial. Critics argue that such reductions incentivise or pressure defendants into pleading guilty, even when a legal defence is available. As a result, wrongful convictions occur. In this seminar Prof. Roberts K.C. (Hon.) will explore the ethics of the practice, and review the guidance currently operating in England and Wales and recent proposals to increase the magnitude of such reductions (contained in the report of the recent Criminal Courts Review). He will conclude with some suggestions for an ideal plea-based sentence reduction regime.

About the Speaker:

Julian Roberts holds an LL.M. from the University of London and a Ph.D from the University of Toronto. In 2023 Julian was appointed Kings Counsel (Honorary) for contributions to sentencing in England and Wales and internationally. In 2022 he received the American Society of Criminology 2021 Sellin-Glueck Award for scholarship that considers Criminal Justice Internationally and Comparatively.

Julian was a member of the Sentencing Council of England and Wales from 2008-2018. He is currently Executive Director of the Sentencing Academy, a London-based institute which links scholars with practitioners, and promotes greater public understanding of sentencing in England including ‘Paying for the Past’ (with Richard Frase) published by the Oxford University Press in 2019. He has edited or co-edited 21 scholarly volumes, including: Sentencing the Self-Convicted: The Ethics of Pleading Guilty (2023) and Sentencing and Artificial Intelligence published by Oxford University Press in 2022.

Julian has been a Visiting Professor at a number of universities, including: Faculty of Law, University of Ferrara; Faculty of law, University of Minnesota; European Public Law Program, Athens (2015); Global Law School, University of Haifa (2012); Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge (2012); Visiting International Professor, Faculty of Law, Université Libre de Bruxelles (2009-2010); School of Law, King’s College London (2009-2010; 2005-2006); Faculty of Law, Catholic University of Leuven (2007-2008). From 2014-2018 he was co-Director of the Criminal History Project located in the Robina Institute, Faculty of Law, University of Minnesota. This multi-year project conducted research into the use of prior convictions in the US sentencing guidelines.

Register here to attend the seminar on or before 24 September 2025, 9:00 am (Hong Kong Time).