A plea of guilty entered during the COVID-19 pandemic ordinarily attracts a more pronounced amelioration of sentence than a similar plea entered at a time when the courts are not afflicted by the pandemic's effects. A sentencing judge who is asked to attribute enhanced utilitarian value to a pandemic-era plea and declines to do so commits a material sentencing error that reopens the sentencing discretion. The enhanced benefit applies where the plea eases the trial backlog, the accused on bail submits to more onerous custodial conditions, and the benefit provides incentive to others to plead guilty.
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