The solution to the dilemma presented by the guilty plea discount : the qualified guilty plea - I'm pleading guilty only because of the discount..."

The guilty plea sentencing discount is arguably a triumph of expediency over principle. Strong utilitarian reasons favour providing less severe sentences to defendants who plead guilty. However, an unsavoury by-product of the guilty plea discount is that some innocent people are pressured into pleading guilty. This article suggests that a possible solution to the problems caused by the discount is to permit defendants to enter a ‘qualified guilty plea’. While formally amounting to a guilty of plea, the defendant would be permitted to advance submissions consistent with innocence as part of the plea in mitigation. If the sentencer is persuaded that the defendant had a tenable chance of an acquittal a penalty discount in excess of that available for merely pleading guilty would be conferred.

The impact of propensity evidence on juror decisions

The thesis's study evaluated the effect that the admission of an accused's prior criminal behaviour had on mock jurors' verdict decisions. The findings indicated that exposing participants to evidence about any previous offence biases the decision. Further, the greater the similarity of the previous offence with the present charge, the more likely the accused was found guilty. The clinical portfolio seeks to demonstrate through the presentation of four case studies, the various pathways (or offence trajectories) contained within the Pathways Model that may lead an adult male to sexually offend against a child.

Delayed allegations of sexual abuse, complainant credibility and juror verdict

This study investigated laypersons' perceptions of memory evidence in a mock childhood sexual abuse trial. Results indicated that delay, memory type (continuous vs. recovered) and the nature of the alleged sexual assault (penetrative vs. fondling) influenced both how witnesses were perceived and the outcome of the trial.

The influence of propensity evidence on juror decision-making

The influence of age, gender, and presentation of propensity evidence on juror decision-making was examined. Results showed that age was significantly related to verdict outcome, with older adults more likely to deliver a verdict of not guilty. Ceiling effects potentially obscured any significant effects of propensity evidence on juror decision-making.

Mock jury attitudes towards credibility, age, and guilt in a fictional child sexual assault scenario

Low conviction rates of child sexual assault (CSA) remain a persistent social problem in Australia. One reason for this may be the impact of attitudes regarding the victims when the evidence is weak. This article examines the effects of victim age on perceptions of credibility and verdict in a CSA case. Eleven electronic focus groups deliberated a fictional CSA case, in which the age of the child was systemically varied between 6 and 15 years. Deliberation transcripts were analysed with NVivo (Version 9, QSR International Pty Ltd., Burlington, MA, USA), from which thematic clusters were derived. Results showed that as the child's age increased, credibility and guilty verdicts decreased. In addition, testimony alone had little impact in influencing the verdict. These findings suggest that in lieu of corroborating evidence, increasing supporting information, such as expert testimony, and providing structured deliberation for the jury may reduce the influence of victim blame, particularly when the child victim is older.

A delayed inheritance: The Medical Board of Victoria's 75-year wait to find doctors guilty of "infamous conduct in a professional respect"

The Medical Board of Victoria (Board) was created in 1844 to register “legally qualified medical practitioners”. It was not until 1933, however, that the Board attained the power to remove from its register a doctor who had engaged in “infamous conduct in a professional respect” (the power), even though the General Council of Medical Education and Registration of the United Kingdom on which the Board was modelled had been granted the power 75 years earlier. This article argues that the delay in the Board’s inheritance was attributable to successive Victorian Parliaments’ distrust of the Board and that this attitude was unwarranted, at least from early in the 20th century. The article maintains that the granting of the power to the Board was a crucial event in the history of the regulation of the Victorian medical profession. This is illustrated both by the difficulty encountered by the medical profession in dealing with doctors’ unethical conduct before 1933, and the Board’s concern to use its new authority responsibly and appropriately to protect the public and the profession in the three years after it attained the power.

Prosecuting corporations and officers for industrial manslaughter-recent Australian developments

There have been concerns for some time about whether breaches of duty that cause a worker's death are appropriately dealt with under occupational health and safety legislation, or whether criminal prosecution is warranted in those cases involving recklessness or gross negligence. Defaulting employers are rarely prosecuted under existing criminal laws and there are serious doctrinal barriers to finding a corporation guilty of mens rea offences.
The Australian Capital Territory leads the way in Australia with the recent introduction of new criminal offences of industrial manslaughter for corporations and their senior officers. These laws rely on concepts of corporate liability based on organisational responsibility and corporate culture in the model Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) , thus avoiding the limitations of the identification doctrine. Other active Australian jurisdictions, whilst initially open to the notion of industrial manslaughter laws, have preferred to make changes to existing OHS laws to deal with the problem of workplace fatalities.
Whilst it has its limitations, and applies only in Australia's smallest jurisdiction, the Australian Capital Territory legislation reflects a commitment to treating workplace deaths with the seriousness they deserve, and making it easier to prosecute corporations whose operations are conducted recklessly or with gross negligence.

The disunity of employment law and sentencing

This article discusses the lack of integration between criminal sanctions and employment deprivations (in the form of being dismissed from employment or disqualified from working in certain industries). Offenders who are employed in certain industries, especially the professions, often suffer a far greater net punishment upon being found guilty of a criminal offence than other offenders, thereby violating the principle of proportionality and the (related) principle of equality in the impact of sanctions. The reason that such a situation has developed is because criminal sanctions and employment deprivations have evolved from different streams of jurisprudence. This article argues that sentencers should impose a ‘net’ sanction for a criminal offence, thereby merging these streams of jurisprudence. This would require courts to be vested with the power to suspend or disqualify people from being employed in certain occupations. The legal analysis in this article focuses on case and statutory law in Australia, however, the same broad principles apply in all common law jurisdictions, including the UK. Hence, the reform proposals suggested in this article are relevant throughout the common law world.

Valuing criminal court services

Criminal courts fundamentally provide a forum for conducting prosecutions with a guilty plea or a trial. At present, there is no generally accepted  methodology for estimating the monetary value of those services. The  purpose of this paper is to attempt to fill this gap by proposing a  methodology predicated on the joint optimising decisions of society and the defendant, who are the two stakeholders in any criminal case. The technique can also be potentially used to evaluate both theoretically and empirically the impact of court delay reduction programs on social welfare, and the specification of socially optimal court waiting times.

Stories seldom told: paediatric nurses` experiences of caring for hospitalized children with special needs and their families.

Stories seldom told: paediatric nurses' experiences of caring for hospitalized children with special needs and their families

Aims of the study. This study explored paediatric nurses' experiences of caring for children with special needs and their families in an acute care setting. The aim of the study was to increase understanding of nurses' experiences of caring for these children and their families. The study was designed to reveal the caring practices embedded within these relationships through exploring nurses' stories.

Study design/methods. Gadamerian hermeneutic phenomenology and feminist research principles were the approaches used to guide the study. Interviews were held with experienced paediatric nurses and interpretation of interview transcripts using a Gadamerian hermeneutic phenomenological approach resulted in the identification of four themes.

Findings. The four themes revealed were: Special Relationships; Multiple Dimensions of Who is Expert; Development of Trust Between Nurses and Families; and Feelings of Frustration and Guilt.

Conclusions. The study emphasized the context-specific nature of relationships between nurses and children and their families. The nurses spoke about the difficulties they encountered in their practice and some of the ways that they dealt with these problems. They discussed the things that they valued and those that made them feel guilty and frustrated. In doing so, they revealed their warmth, strength, humanity and caring.