A Thankfully Wide Sea between England and Apprendi-Land

This article uses the US Supreme Court’s line of cases beginning with Apprendi v. New Jersey to illuminate territory in which English law, in comparison to American law, is comparatively underdeveloped—currently affording a Newton-style hearing only where a guilty plea obliterates any previous evidence. This need not be so. Both before and after Apprendi, US federal and state courts have implemented post-trial fact-finding procedures for sentencing purposes, and we could do the same. The Davies case, where the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt was imported from the trial phase, into consideration of the statutory starting points for murder sentencing, will, for reasons to be given, be doubted.