%0 Journal Article
%T Conviction by Consent? Vulnerability, Autonomy and Conviction by Guilty Plea
%A Rebecca K Helm
%J The Journal of Criminal Law
%@ 1740-5580
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0022018318822223
%X A criminal conviction resulting from a guilty plea rather than a full trial is typically justified on the basis that the defendant had the ability to go to trial but instead chose to admit guilt in exchange for a small sentence reduction. In other words, the conviction, and associated waiver of rights, occurred by consent. In this article, I challenge that notion by drawing on psycho-legal research on vulnerability and consent and research on guilty pleas in the USA. I suggest that while plea procedure in England and Wales appears less coercive than the practice of ¡®plea bargaining¡¯ in the United States, aspects of the system are highly problematic and are likely to be leading to non-consensual guilty pleas, through which innocent defendants are pleading guilty
%K Guilty pleas
%K criminal procedure
%K consent
%K vulnerability
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022018318822223