The defendant’s counsel rather than the defendant personally had made his plea of guilty.
Held: The error amounted to a mistrial. The defendant’s conviction was quashed and a retrial ordered.
Edmund Davies LJ said: ‘before a criminal trial by judge and jury can be properly launched there must generally be an arraignment of the accused of the offence charged and he must personally answer to it, and . . this cannot be done through counsel or any other person on his behalf . .
. . great mischief could ensure if a legal representative was generally regarded as entitled to plead on an accused’s behalf. It would open the door to dispute as to whether, for example, counsel had correctly understood and acted upon the instructions which the accused had given him, and if a dispute of that kind arose, the consequential embarrassment and difficulty could be difficult in the extreme.
We think that the only safe and proper course accordingly is to say . . that (apart from a few very special cases) it is an invariable requirement that the initial arraignment must be conducted between the Clerk of the Court and the accused person himself or herself directly . . ‘
Judges:
Edmund Davies LJ
Citations:
(1973) 57 Cr App R 571
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Explained – Regina v Williams 1978
At his Crown Court trial, a misunderstanding led the clerk of the court to empanel a jury without first taking the defendant’s not guilty plea. The defendant was convicted and now argued that the trial was a nullity because he had not pleaded.
Cited – Westminster City Council v Owadally and Another Admn 17-May-2017
Defendant must plea to charge, and not counsel
The defendants had, through their barrister, entered pleas of guilty, but the crown court had declared the convictions invalid because this had to have been done by the defendants personally, and remitted the cases and the confiscation proceedings . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Practice
Updated: 06 May 2022; Ref: scu.583984