Pre-trial Negotiations in the Children's Court

Abstract

This paper investigates the practice of plea bargaining in the South Australian juvenile justice system, where pre-trial nego tiations between the prosecution and defence counsel are for mally recognised and sanctioned by the Bench. Using the case records of one children's Court lawyer, the study revealed that charge bargaining is a relatively common practice in the juris diction, with one half of the cases surveyed involving some form of dispute. However, when the nature of these disputes was analysed, it was found that the majority were relatively trivial, and the negotiated settlements, which were arrived at through 'casual' bargaining, generally entailed no major gains or losses for either party. By contrast, only a core of disputes went to the heart of the case. These required intensive bar gaining which, when successful, generally brought significant benefits to the accused. In sum then, charge bargaining in the South Australian juvenile system does not appear to result in a major re-routing of the course of justice.