The strength of the prosecution case is not relevant to the assessment of the utilitarian value of a guilty plea, though it may bear on the assessment of contrition. Where co-offenders of equal culpability receive markedly different sentences, the parity principle requires that the disparity bear due proportion to the differences in subjective circumstances; a markedly lenient sentence on one co-offender (not appealed by the Crown) may ground a justifiable sense of grievance in the other.
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