HKU CCPL Talk: Sentencing in Common Law Jurisdictions: Key Issues

This seminar will explore sentencing in the adversarial system of justice. Unlike the civil law or continental jurisdictions, common law countries bifurcate the trial. Verdict is determined in the first phase and then sentencing in a second separate hearing. The seminar discusses the merits of this approach and then focuses on some universal issues in contemporary sentencing. These include: the use of sentence reductions for a guilty plea; mitigating and aggravating factors including the impact of prior convictions; Victim Impact Statements (VIS) and the role of the crime victim; the role of counsel at sentencing. I illustrate these issues using examples from England and Wales, Canada, and the US.