I dunno how to say this without causing "offence" but why is everyone focussing on the sentence when the point of the thread was the waste of time and money going over and over things when there was no need for it.   All the time you see cases taking months to get to Court "due to the backlog" and the cost for everyone escalates because....... everything has a cost!

There may be no need for "going over and over things" in your view but It's important to get the message across to the guilty party that what he did was so wrong and perhaps it's also a message to others...

It's standard practice for the judge to go away and decide about the sentencing, particularly when there are 13 different victims involved. You could turn it around and say that he would be wasting his time on deciding on the sentencing prior to getting a "not guilty" verdict. Budgets are built into the system to support it.

The backlog is due to far too many people committing crimes... not about Judges summing up and sentencing. I think it's a very valuable process because the written document explains his reasoning for the sentencing, it also contains other information that you aren't party to. 

You've been watching too many American court dramas... :^O