Mike McConville

Criminal cases are commonly seen as a fight between adversaries of equal strength: the intrusive power of the State versus skilled defence lawyers advocating their clients' cause. The reality, according to this major new study, is rather different. The provision of defence counsel is often rudimentary and unsatisfactory. Based on one of the largest studies of legal professional practice ever undertaken, involving nearly fifty solicitors' firms, this book offers a critical examination of the practices and organization of defence lawyers in Britain. The authors show how defence lawyers discharge their obligations to clients from the moment of initial contact with clients through to the routine preparation and representation of defendants in both Magistrates' and Crown Courts. For the first time, this study reveals the role of paralegals and unqualified staff in providing defence assistance, and highlights how their inexperience and assumption of the client's guilt can critically undermine defendants' rights. The deficiencies highlighted by their research lead the authors to question the effectiveness of recent liberal and managerial reforms, with their excessive reliance on market-led considerations. The authors propose a cultural transformation in criminal defence work, a reassertion of the defendants' rights within an adversarial system, and offer constructive suggestions for improving defence services. Extensively researched and documented, this study is a major contribution to current debates about the criminal justice system, and as such will be required reading for all lawyers, scholars, and professionals interested in the administration of justice.

Originally published in 1991, The Case for the Prosecution examines the entire process of arrest through to conviction.

Through an examination of the history of the rules that regulate police interrogation (the Judges' Rules) in conjunction with plea bargaining and the Criminal Procedure Rules, this book explores the 'Westminster Model' under which three arms of the State (parliament, the executive, and the judiciary) operate independently of one another. It reveals how policy was framed in secret meetings with the executive which then actively misled parliament in contradiction to its ostensible formal relationship with the legislature. This analysis of Home Office archives shows how the worldwide significance of the Judges' Rules was secured not simply by the standing of the English judiciary and the political power of the empire but more significantly by the false representation that the Rules were the handiwork of judges rather than civil servants and politicians. The book critically examines the claim repeatedly advanced by judges that "judicial independence" is justified by principles arising from the "rule of law" and instead shows that the "rule of law" depends upon basic principles of the common law, including an adversarial process and trial by jury, and that the underpinnings of judicial action in criminal justice today may be ideological rather than based on principles.

Originally published in 1991, The Case for the Prosecution examines the entire process of arrest through to conviction.

From the early 80s community policing has been held up as a new commitment to the ideals of service and the rejection of coercive policing styles. The idea was to encourage a partnership between the public and police in which community needs would be met by officers on local beats. Today, Government ministers and senior police officers depict Neighbourhood Watch, the centrepiece of the scheme, as a great success. However, Watching Police, Watching Communities reveals that most schemes are dormant or dead. The authors trace the causes of scheme failure to the lack of commitment to community policing by police forces. Most importantly, they find a police rank-and-file culture which celebrates aggression, machismo and the assertion of authority especially against areas occupied by ethnic minorities and other disadvantaged groups.

This provocative and powerful book provides a critical review of Britain's criminal justice process through its practices, culture and traditions, revealing a landscape in ruins under the dominance of State-induced Guilty Pleas. Against a backdrop of a dysfunctional criminal justice system, the authors bring an avalanche of legal and empirical material to question the legitimacy of the relationship between judges, lawyers, politicians and defendants in modern Britain. Examining existing legal structures and court practices through the lens of what used to be called plea bargaining the authors provide a graphic picture of why case disposals through enforced guilty pleas promote injustice, feed discrimination and skew the judicial function. This is the most comprehensive examination to date of case disposition methods in England, Wales and Scotland., underpinned by a new socio-legal theory on the criminal process. Criminal Judges is sure to provoke debate on the forces which drive the criminal justice process and will therefore be of great interest to all those concerned about the future of criminal justice policies and practices. It will appeal to academics, researchers, policy advisors and practitioners of criminal law.

The political, economic and social transformations that have taken place in China over the last half-century have had a major impact upon the formal methods, institutions and mechanisms used to deal with alleged criminal infractions. This path-breaking book, based upon the largest and most systematic empirical inquiry ever undertaken in China, analyzes the extent to which changes to the formal legal structure have resulted in changes to the law in practice. With unprecedented access to prosecution case files, observation of live trials and interviews with judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers, the book paints a uniquely detailed picture of China's criminal justice system as it operates in everyday cases. Among the major themes explored are: bail; detention; torture; confessions; the role of police, prosecutors and judges; the work of defence lawyers; pre-trial and trial practice; and sentencing practices, including the death penalty. The book shows, through volumes of quantitative data and the voices of judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers, how the party-state continues to influence and control both the process and outcome of criminal trials through an elaborate system of audit and sanction, the result of which is a system of aggregate rather than individual justice. With a wealth of original empirical data, this book will be of significant interest to academics and postgraduate students in the general area of Chinese Studies, human rights, criminal justice and comparative criminal justice. Policy makers, politicians and development agencies will also find it invaluable. With contributions from: Satnam Choongh, Pinky Choy Dick Wan, Eric Chui Wing Hong, Ian Dobinson and Carol Jones

The political, economic and social transformations that have taken place in China over the last half-century have had a major impact upon the formal methods, institutions and mechanisms used to deal with alleged criminal infractions. This path-breaking book, based upon the largest and most systematic empirical inquiry ever undertaken in China, analyzes the extent to which changes to the formal legal structure have resulted in changes to the law in practice. With unprecedented access to prosecution case files, observation of live trials and interviews with judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers, the book paints a uniquely detailed picture of China's criminal justice system as it operates in everyday cases. Among the major themes explored are: bail; detention; torture; confessions; the role of police, prosecutors and judges; the work of defence lawyers; pre-trial and trial practice; and sentencing practices, including the death penalty. The book shows, through volumes of quantitative data and the voices of judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers, how the party-state continues to influence and control both the process and outcome of criminal trials through an elaborate system of audit and sanction, the result of which is a system of aggregate rather than individual justice. With a wealth of original empirical data, this book will be of significant interest to academics and postgraduate students in the general area of Chinese Studies, human rights, criminal justice and comparative criminal justice. Policy makers, politicians and development agencies will also find it invaluable. With contributions from: Satnam Choongh, Pinky Choy Dick Wan, Eric Chui Wing Hong, Ian Dobinson and Carol Jones

This book is a study of the social transformation of criminal justice, its institutions, its method of case disposition and the source of its legitimacy. Focused upon the apprehension, investigation and adjudication of indicted cases in New York City's main trial tribunal in the nineteenth century - the Court of General Sessions - it traces the historical underpinnings of a lawyering culture which, in the first half of the nineteenth century, celebrated trial by jury as the fairest and most reliable method of case disposition and then at the middle of the century dramatically gave birth to plea bargaining, which thereafter became the dominant method of case disposition in the United States. The book demonstrates that the nature of criminal prosecutions in everyday indicted cases was transformed, from disputes between private parties resolved through a public determination of the facts and law to a private determination of the issues between the state and the individual, marked by greater police involvement in the processing of defendants and public prosecutorial discretion. As this occurred, the structural purpose of criminal courts changed - from individual to aggregate justice - as did the method and manner of their dispositions - from trials to guilty pleas. Contemporaneously, a new criminology emerged, with its origins in European jurisprudence, which was to transform the way in which crime was viewed as a social and political problem. The book, therefore, sheds light on the relationship of the method of case disposition to the means of securing social control of an underclass, in the context of the legitimation of a new social order in which the local state sought to define groups of people as well as actual offending in criminogenic terms. "At a moment when France is poised to adopt plea bargaining, McConville and Mirsky offer the best historical account of its emergence in mid-nineteenth century America, based upon exhaustive analysis of archival data. Their interpretation of the reasons for the dramatic shift from jury trials to negotiated justice offers no comfort for contemporary apologists of plea bargaining as more "professional." The combination of new data and critical reflection on accepted theories make this essential reading for anyone interested in criminal justice policy." Rick Abel, Connell Professor of Law, UCLA Law School "A fascinating account which traces the origins of plea-bargaining in the politicisation of criminal justice, linking developments in day-to-day practices of the criminal process with macro-changes in political economy, notably the structures of local governance. This is a classic socio-legal study and should be read by anyone interested in criminology, criminal justice, modern history or social theory". Nicola Lacey, Professor of Criminal Law and Legal Theory, London School of Economics.

From the early 80s community policing has been held up as a new commitment to the ideals of service and the rejection of coercive policing styles. The idea was to encourage a partnership between the public and police in which community needs would be met by officers on local beats. Today, Government ministers and senior police officers depict Neighbourhood Watch, the centrepiece of the scheme, as a great success. However, Watching Police, Watching Communities reveals that most schemes are dormant or dead. The authors trace the causes of scheme failure to the lack of commitment to community policing by police forces. Most importantly, they find a police rank-and-file culture which celebrates aggression, machismo and the assertion of authority especially against areas occupied by ethnic minorities and other disadvantaged groups.