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.
Held: The appeal failed. It was implicit in the proceedings that the defendant had waived his right to plead not guilty personally; accordingly, the defective arraignment had not invalidated the trial. distinguished between pleas of guilty and pleas of not guilty. As to guilty pleas, Shaw LJ, having cited Ellis, said: ‘There [i.e., in Ellis] the critical issue was whether a plea of guilty tendered by counsel and not by the accused himself could be regarded as an effective and binding plea. It is of course plain to see why it cannot and should not be so regarded. It is a plea which is self-incriminatory and self-incrimination cannot be vicariously accomplished. Any contrary view would be fraught with manifest dangers. Injustice rather than justice would be the likely products of a principle which permitted indirect delegated confessions of guilt.
No qualification of or deviation from the rule that a plea of guilty must come from him who acknowledges guilt is thus permissible. A departure from the rule in a criminal trial would therefore necessarily be a vitiating factor rendering the whole procedure void and ineffectual.’
Judges:
Shaw LJ
Citations:
[1978] QB 373
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Explained – Regina v Ellis 1973
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 . .
Cited by:
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.583985