UK legal jargon? -- "to plead guilty with full credit"

UK legal jargon? -- "to plead guilty with full credit"

"T. Z."	9/7/2004 10:07:58 AM
Thanks so much for the quick responses. I'd appreciate comments on the following. "to plead guilty with full credit" 1. Is this phrase immediately recognizable to an average, literate Brit (who reads, say, The Economist or FT)? 2. This phrase doesn't seem to be recognizable to an average, literate American (who reads, say, TIME or Newsweek). __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail



Tom	9/7/2004 6:43:50 PM
T. Z. wrote... Thanks so much for the quick responses. I'd appreciate comments on the following. "to plead guilty with full credit" 1. Is this phrase immediately recognizable to an average, literate Brit (who reads, say, The Economist or FT)? My guess? About half will recognise it. Most of these will recognise that the phrasing it is actually incorrect - you do not plead with credit - but will guess what it means. 2. This phrase doesn't seem to be recognizable to an average, literate American (who reads, say, TIME or Newsweek). Well, there you go.



Keeper	9/7/2004 10:14:32 PM
The rule of Law of England and Wales is that the judge/bench should give the defendant credit for a guilty plea when deciding on the appropriate sentence. (Because, amongst other things, of the distress that might have been caused to witnesses who would otherwise have had to attend court and give evidence.) Phrases might include something like "In setting the period of the custodial sentence I have taken into account your early guilty plea and given you full credit for it." A newspaper report might say "The court gave the defendant full credit for his guilty plea." I do not understand the concept of "pleading with credit" and as I pointed out before the original source was from Canada. Perhaps somebody there will be able to explain that. -- Keeper

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