This article concerns appeals against decisions of the Crown Court of England and Wales. The majority of appeals against Crown Court decisions are heard by the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal has jurisdiction to hear the following appeals:
| Following trial on indictment | Appeals against conviction on indictment | Appeals against conviction on indictment may only be made with a certificate of the trial judge or leave of the Court of Appeal. An application for leave must be submitted with written reasons within 28 days of conviction. If leave is refused by a single judge on the papers, the applicant has a right to have the matter determined by a two-judge or full court.[1] An applicant may normally only appeal once against conviction, even if new evidence has arisen.[2] The Court of Appeal will quash the conviction if it was unsafe. A conviction may be unsafe despite the applicant having pleaded guilty where:
A conviction may be unsafe even if the appellant admitted his guilt at trial if an application that there was no case to answer was wrongly refused. A conviction obtained on this basis is an abuse of process.[4] Following a successful appeal, the appellant must be acquitted. The Court of Appeal may order a retrial where the interests of justice so require.[5] The appellant may only be retried for an offence of which he could have been convicted in the original trial. The defendant must be arraigned within two months unless the Court of Appeal orders otherwise.[6] The Court of Appeal may substitute for the verdict found by the jury a verdict of guilty of another offence, if the jury could have found him guilty of that offence and it appears to the Court of Appeal that the jury must have been satisfied of facts which proved him guilty of the other offence. Where the Court of Appeal substitutes a conviction for another offence or quashes some of the convictions but not others, the Court of Appeal may sentence the offender. | |
| Appeals against sentence following conviction on indictment | A person convicted in the Crown Court may only appeal against sentence with a certificate of the trial judge or leave of the Court of Appeal. For this purpose, sentence includes any order made by a court when dealing with the offender. The Court of Appeal may quash any sentence which is the subject of the appeal and in place of it pass such sentence as they think is appropriate, so long as taking the case as a whole, the appellant is not dealt with more severely by the Court of Appeal than by the Crown Court.[7] | ||
| Appeals against findings of unfitness to plead | |||
| Appeals against verdicts of not guilty by reason of insanity | |||
| Following trial in a magistrates' court | Appeals against sentence passed by the Crown Court following committal for sentence by the magistrates' court. | ||
| Serious fraud cases | Appeals against rulings made at preparatory hearings in cases of serious fraud.[8] | ||
| References by the Attorney-General | Opinions on points of law following the acquittal of a defendant.[9] | ||
| Appeals against unduly lenient sentences in relation to offences triable only on indictment, and in relation to certain specified either way offences.[10] | |||
| References by the Criminal Cases Review Commission | Appeals[11] | ||
| No valid trial at all | Writ of venire de novo | The following are categories of cases where the trial is a nullity and thus a writ of venire de novo may be granted:
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A divisional court of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court has jurisdiction to hear appeals by way of case stated[12] and applications for judicial review,[13] where the Crown Court is conducting an appeal against a decision of a magistrates' court.
Book: Hooper . Ormerod . Murphy . . 2008 . Oxford . 978-0-19-922814-0 . Section F19 Inferences from Silence and the Non-production of Evidence .