ABSTRACT
The importance of the pre-trial stage in criminal justice proceedings can hardly be overestimated. Whatever the legal system, much of the justice process takes place prior to trial, in arrangements and practices that are less transparent than trials and often less carefully regulated. To illustrate this, Baldwin (1985) starts his book as follows:
Contrary to the popular view, the crucial decisions in most criminal cases are not made in open court but in discussions that take place in private beforehand. In these cases the court represents no more than the final stage in a lengthy series of exchanges involving police officers, lawyers, court officials and the defendant himself. The pre-trial stages of the criminal process have proved curiously impenetrable to outside observers, despite the fact that this is the time when the vulnerability of defendants might most easily be exploited.
