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America’s court and criminal justice system

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America’s court and criminal justice system

Explain the law of precedent and the doctrine of stare decisis

Precedent is a key characteristic of common law, stare decisis is Latin for “let the decision stand.”  Decisions made by judges in previous cases provide for the benchmark for cases. All decisions made follow patterns of previous cases with similar facts. This creates consistency and fairness in the court system. The use of precedent in ruling provides for broad policy accumulated over time. Rather than solving a range of legal problems the court system strives to resolve what is necessary. The court system is conservative and to achieve flexibility there is a need to distinguish between precedents.

Explain what is known as a Writ of Certiorari and the Rule of Four.

The American Supreme court in limited occasions acts as the original jurisdiction for cases. Therefore, the Supreme Court’s main role is to review decisions made by the highest court and the lower federal courts. The appellate jurisdiction is rather discretionary than mandatory. Granting of the writ of certiorari allows the Supreme Court to exercise this discretion mandate. The process starts with a petition being signed by a party and the Supreme Court issues orders to lower courts and the high court to present case records to determine whether the law was applied correctly.

The rule of four is when four Supreme Court justices vote to grant certiorari to review a case. This phenomenon helps the minority of the court to impose on the majority on a question viewed as inappropriate. The rule of four is not contained in rule of law but undertaken as customary since the supreme court gained the ability to act independently own docket with the creation of the circuit courts of Appeal in 1891 (Fang, Johnson, & Roberts, 2007).

Explain what is called centralized administration of the court system.

The court system is planned as a hierarchical top-down flow of authority. Policy directive is from a central office to all local courts and in turn, are held accountable by the state high court of last resort.

Explain what is referred to as Assembly Line Justice.

Assembly line justice is the problem of a great difference between the number of cases and the number of judges. The court system from the defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, and even probation officers is greatly understaffed. A phenomenon witnessed in all aspects of the judicial system. All the person has to deal with strict deadlines and long calendar schedules. Although witnesses and reported nearly 50years ago the situation is still the same, an understaffed and underfunded court system. This leads to cases being handled in bulk and specialization in specific tasks. Lower Courts result in sentencing based on defendant membership class as opposed to individual case consideration.

Explain what is known as Community Prosecution including the elements in common

Community prosecution is when district attorney files charges and seek conviction to fulfill a community urge to have crime rates lowered. The act of stress case processing is rather blurry as community prosecutors now diverse community problems ranging from juvenile offenders, domestic violence, and drug abuse (center for court innovation, 2012b). The specific underlying problem is difficult to pin down since the approach is dependent on community needs as opposed to national program guides (William vs. steward, 2013). All approaches have three elements, firstly the prosecutor’s role is to prosecute cases and decrease crime rates. Secondly, effective results are achieved within small and manageable communities leading to working out of neighborhood offices. Thirdly, change is achieved through community partnership as opposed to prosecutors dictating and often are the time’s community leaders set the crime development agenda. This program has led to different features where district attorneys use civil remedies to combat crime. Generally, community prosecution stresses crime prevention and a proactive approach to fight crime (miles, 2013).

Explain the standard of ineffective assistance of counsel including the relevant case law

Ineffective Assistance of counsel deems a trial proceeding as unjust. An attorney’s conduct on strategy and tactic all make serious presumptions of competent and effective performance. For this reason, the Supreme Court has recognized the effective assistance of counsel as mandatory to the sixth amendment guarantee (McMann vs. Richardson, 1970). Strickland vs. Washington 1984   Justice Sandra Day O’Connor set the ‘objective standard of reasonableness’ as a significant method to determine the ineffectiveness of counsel. Knowles vs. Mirzayance, 2009, in the ruling ineffective assistance of counsel, it can be used to reverse a ruling deemed unfair if the result would have been different. For death penalty cases the standards are even higher. In a case with gross misconduct with defense attorney failing to investigate the defendant’s troubled background new sentencing was ordered (Wiggins v. Smith, 2003). Effective assistance of counsel incorporates court trials and pretrial stages of criminal prosecution leading to plea bargain resolution. Missouri vs. Frye and Lafler vs. cooper signaled a shift in sixth amendment jurisprudence to encompass the plea bargain as part of the criminal justice system.

Explain Victim Impact Statements and its Constitutionality including the relevant case law

Victim Impact Statements are information oral or written of crime impact on the victim. These statements are used to convince the court to give serious sentences although appeals for leniency happen occasionally. Victims offering their statements during trial usually should not uninterrupted. In two instances, Booth vs. Maryland (1987) and South Carolina vs. Gathers (1989) the court deemed unconstitutional victim impact statements for capital cases. This imposed an unacceptable risk of jury unjustly giving a death penalty. Prosecutors swaying the jury emotionally for a death penalty after the victim’s grandmother offered an emotional victim impact statement (Payne vs. Tennessee, 1991).

Explain Initial Appearance and the relevant case law

U.S supreme held that ‘on the scene assessment of probable cause person arrested should be arraigned before a magistrate for judicial determination of the probable cause. This is referred to as initial hearing or Gerstein hearing which statutes offer it should be immediately. In the county of riverside vs. McLaughlin (1981) the Supreme Court allows this to should happen within 48 hours after warrantless arrest.

Explain the Discovery of Exculpatory Evidence and the relevant case law.

Commonly called the Brady rule, the U.S Supreme Court held that suppression of judicious evidence, after a request by accuse, by the prosecution deemed as a violation of due process (Brady vs. Maryland, 1963).  The prosecution is under no obligation to give anything deemed exculpatory information, the Brady rule only applies for admissible evidence. A reasonable probability is required for any exculpatory evidence to be provided.

Explain the three different forms of plea bargaining

An offender pleads guilty to criminal charges with intent to receive leniency from the state is the process of plea bargaining. The plea bargain can be charge bargaining, sentence bargaining, or count bargaining. Count bargaining is where offenders plead guilty for one or more counts in charges and the prosecutor dismisses the rest of the charges. Secondly, charge bargain the offender pleads guilty to a less serious charge than originally convicted. Sentence bargaining the defendant guilty plea is in exchange for leniency during sentencing. The defendant is offered a less sentence on the maximum offense penalty.

 

 

 

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