Jansen. A sentence comparison case among co-accused’s. The case is of note to trial practitioners and SJA’s for it’s “discussion” of what is or isn’t a “closely related” case, and whether sentence disparity should be addressed with the CA post-trial.
Principi. A CP case where the prosecution charged for contingencies of proof, the contingency wasn’t resolved at trial, but the sentence was a decent one so no real prejudice.
Redeaux. I think this case should be looked at as a pleadings specificity and notice case, and IAC of TC/SJA/Art. 32 IO. Poor pleading practice lead to the accused getting a benefit, that he probably wasn’t entitled to. The MJ raised issues with the pleadings. The TC folded and apparently didn’t make an argument that the pleadings, while inartful, were sufficient. Because the TC folded the accused got the benefit of renegotiating his PTA for a lower sentence cap.
Effectively the MJ decided that the client had received bad advice about the potential maximum punishment when negotiating the PTA. NMCCA says the MJ was wrong and the DC was right. Unfortunately no EAC footnote.
The initial PTA had a cap of 36 months, the new cap was 24, the sentence was 30 months. Had the TC stood firm and done a little research he might have persuaded the MJ that he was wrong. Had the TC drafted good charges, the IO caught the problem, the SJA caught the problem, . . .