I don't know if it is standard practice country wide but round here the judge is informed of any defendant's prior convictions at some stage prior to sentencing. In one case I am thinking of the judge did preface his sentencing with words along the lines of "in view of your previous convictions ......" though no details of those convictions were disclosed at any time. (The defendant had changed his plea to "guilty" in front of us)VerisonaLaw wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2017 8:46 am
It is a shame at that point he did not wish to reveal the extent of the abuse to save putting the others through the trauma of having to disclose as a result of original conviction.
As an aside, as a juror I was surprised at the decisions of judges regarding peripherals etc. in the court; I am NOT commenting on the taking of evidence, pleas etc. but other factors which were a total waste of the court's time.
For example the CPS did not have a copy and was allowing the victim of the crime to bring to court all the electronic evidence; the victim simply didn't bring it. That was disclosed after a jury had been chosen, sworn in and the prosecution should have made his opening presentation. Without the slightest glimmer of annoyance the judge simply postponed the case to a later date.
There were several other situations of like strangeness even within that particular fortnight in one case over many hours not one but at various times three jurors declared that thwey knew someone named by the Counsel for the prosecution. After the first two cases the judge called for a new jury (ie the old one but the subject one replaced) but in the third case he specified that no one who had been sworn in before could be called - what was wrong with us? I was happy - the case was scheduled for two weeks and lasted far longer, the jurors being excused for life!
OTOH the judge's attitude and comments to jury members was very pleasant and positive.