CJUS 330

CJUS 330: Judicial Process:
Chapter 1: Courts, Crime, and Controversy:
Criminal Justice System: the numerous public agencies involved in implementing public policy concerning crime.
Dual Court System: Separate state and federal courts.
Federal Court: State Court:
Supreme Court of ◄ Appellate Court of last the United States resort (Supreme Court) ▲ ▲
Circuit Courts of Intermediate Courts of Appeals Appeals (in 39 states) ▲ ▲
District Courts Trial Courts of general ▲ jurisdiction (called District,
Magistrate Courts Superior, or Circuit Courts) ▲ Trial Courts of limited jurisdiction (municipal, county and state jurisdictions – called circuit, common pleas, justice, district, mayor’s or magistrate courts)

Actors in the Courthouse:

Justice Professionals:

Police: federal, state, sheriff, local, special districts, private security

Lawyers: prosecutors, public defenders, private defense attorneys, judges, law clerks.

Court Support Staff: Clerks of court, court reporters, pretrial services personnel, bailiffs, court administrators, victim/witness assistance program personnel, rape crisis center

Corrections Officials: Probation officers, jail employees, prison employees, drug rehab program personnel.

Members of the Public:

Regular Participants: Bail agents, reporters, social services personnel, select expert witnesses.

Irregular Participants: Defendants, victims, witnesses, jurors, victim advocates

Prosecutor: a public official who represents the state in a criminal action.
Defense Attorneys: hired or government appointed lawyer for the defendant.
Judges: in state courts they are elected by the voters. Federal judges are nominated by the president. Judges are the ultimate authority figures in the courthouse. Only they can set bail, instruct jurors, and impose sentences.
Defendants: is the person or party against whom a lawsuit or prosecution is brought (normally young, poor, uneducated males. Accused of property crimes (theft or burglary) or low level drug offenses.
Victims: is the person whom a crime was committed against. Play a important role in criminal courts.
Crimes fall into three categories:
1. Felonies (1 yr or more in prison)
2. Misdemeanors (up to 1 yr in local jail)
3. Violations (fine or short jail term)
Arrest: the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty. Physically taking the arrestee into police custody for a suspected violation of criminal law.
Initial appearance: after arrest the suspect is brought before a judicial official, who informs the person of the reason for the arrest and makes an initial determination about whether there was probable cause for the arrest. In some jurisdictions, a preliminary determination regarding bail may also be made.
Bail: the security (money or bail bond) given as a guarantee tht a released prisoner will appear at trial.
Grand Jury: a group of citizens who decide whether persons accused of crimes should be indicted (true bill) or not (no true bill)
Discovery: pretrial procedure in which parties to a lawsuit ask for and receive information such as testimony, records, or other evidence from each other.
Preliminary hearing: a pretrial hearing to determine whether there is probable cause to bind a defendant over for felony trial.
Pretrial Motions: simply requests for a judge to make a decision.
Plea negotiations: agreement between the prosecutor and defense attorney for a certain plea with certain sentencing.
Arraignment: the stage of the criminal process in which the defendant is formally told the charges and allowed to enter a plea.
Trial: can either be a jury trial or a bench trial by a judge. Determined whether a defendant is guilty or innocent.
Sentencing: the decision of a judge whether to impose a prison sentence or place the defendant on probation.
Appeal: contesting the ruling with a higher court in hopes of getting a new trial.
Law on the books: the legal and structural components of the judiciary. An idealized view of law. (Legal Theory)
Law in action: human factors governing the actual applications of the law. Also stresses the importance of discretion. (How law is applied)
Law on the Books:
1. The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to a speedy trial.
2. The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to a trial by jury in all criminal prosecutions in which the defendant faces imprisonment for more than 6 months.
3. Every defendant convicted at trial has the right to one appeal.
Law in Action:
1. The major trial courts of many counties are so backlogged that the median time between arrest and trial varies between a time of 6 to 12 months.
2. Trials occur in fewer than 10% of all criminal cases. The remaining 90% of cases are disposed of through the plea-bargaining process.
3. The overwhelming number of criminal cases are not appealed; of those that are appealed, more than 90% of convictions will be affirmed.
Crime Control Model: a perspective on the criminal justice process based on the proposition that the most important function of criminal justice is the repression of crime, focusing on efficiency as a principal measure.
Due Process Model: a philosophy of criminal justice based on the assumption that an individual is innocent until proven guilty and has a right to protection from arbitrary power of the state.
Crime Control Model:
Key goal: repression of criminal conduct.
Focus: apprehend, convict, and punish offenders.
Values: expeditious processing of offenders to achieve justice for victims and society as a whole.
Mood: certainty; focuses on factual guilt. Assumes someone arrested and charged is probably guilty. Relies on informal, nonadjudicative fact finding- primarily by police and presecutors.
Goal of courts: Assembly line justice: process cases quickly and efficiently to promote finality of convictions.
Attitude toward defendants rights: technicalities permit the guilty to go free.
Sentencing: punishment deters crime and incapacitates offenders.
Due Process Model:
Key goal: respect for and protection of individual rights.
Focus: protect the innocent/wrongfully accused; limit governmental power.
Values: dignity and autonomy of both the accused and the system are to be preserved.
Mood: Skepticism; focuses on legal guilt. Assumes that someone is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Relies on formal, adjudicative, adversarial fact-finding processes.
Goal of courts: obstacle court justice: presents numerous obstacles to prevent errors and wrongful convictions by ensuring careful consideration of each case.
Attitude toward defendants rights: technicalities prevent abuses of governmental authority to foster freedom in a constitutional democracy.
Sentencing: rehabilitation prevents crime.

Chapter 2: Law and Crime:
The Basis Of Law:
The basis of law can be summarized in two words: human conflict.
Law is an everyday word, but as Professor Lawrence Friedman (1984, p. 2) suggests, “It is a word of many meanings, as slippery as glass, as elusive as a soap bubble.”
Scholars define law as a body of rules enacted by public officials in a legitimate manner and backed by the force of the state.
This definition can be broken into four phrases, and each has important implications for how we think about law:
1. The first element—law is a body of rules—is self-evident.
2. The second element—law is enacted by public officials—is of critical importance.
3. The third element—law is enacted in a legiti- mate manner—means that it must be agreed upon ahead of time how the rules will be changed.
4. The final element—law is backed by the force of the state—says that these rules and regulations would be largely meaningless without sanctions.
People use the term justice to support particular political and social goals.
The Common Law Heritage:
The legal systems of the United States and other English-speaking nations that were once British colonies (including Australia, New Zealand, and Canada) trace their origins to England and its so-called common law. The common law first appeared in medieval England after the Norman conquest in 1066.

A distinct body of national law began to develop during the reign of Henry II (1154–1189)

The term common law meant “general law” as opposed to “special law”; it was the law common to the entire land.

U.S. law is sometimes referred to as Anglo-American law.

Judge-made Law:
One key characteristic of the common law is that it was predominantly judge-made law (rather than legislatively enacted).
Precedent:
A second key characteristic of the common law is the use of precedent, often referred to as stare decisis (“let the decision stand”). The doctrine of precedent requires a judge to decide a case by applying the rule of law found in previous cases, provided the facts in the current case are similar to the facts in the previous cases.
In the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1920, p. 187): “It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that it was so laid down in the times of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.”
Multiple Sources of Law:
The third key characteristic of the common law is that it is found in multiple sources (a concept sometimes expressed as “uncodified”). In deciding the legal meaning of a given crime it is not sufficient to look only at the legislative act. One must also know how the courts have interpreted the statute. Depending on the issue, the applicable rules of law may be found in constitutions, statutes, administrative regulations, or court decisions.
Constitution: is the first document that establishes the underlying principles and general laws of a nation or state. The U.S. Constitution is the fundamental law of the land. All other laws— federal, state, and local—are secondary.
The second rung of law consists of statutes. Laws enacted by federal and state legislatures are usually referred to as “statutory law.” A statutory law enacted by a local unit of government is commonly called a municipal ordinance.
The third rung of American law consists of administrative regulations. Legislative bodies delegate rule-making authority to a host of governmental bureaucracies called by various names, such as agencies, boards, bureaus, commissions, and departments.
The adversary system:
Law is both substantive and procedural. Substantive law creates legal obligations. Tort, contract, and domestic relations are examples of substantive civil law. Murder, robbery, and burglary are examples of substantive criminal law.
Procedural law, on the other hand, establishes the methods of enforcing these legal obligations. Trials are the best-known aspect of American procedural law, but trials do not exist alone. Before trial there must be orderly ways to start, conduct, and end lawsuits. An important aspect of procedural law centers on the roles law- yers and judges play in the legal process.
Under the adversary system, the burden is on the prosecutor to prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the defense attorney is responsible for arguing for the client’s innocence and asserting legal protections. The judge serves as a neutral arbitrator who stands above the fight as a disinterested party, ensuring that each side battles within the established rules. Finally, the decision is entrusted to the jury (although, in some instances, a judge alone may decide).
The guiding assumption of the adversary system is that two parties, approaching the facts from entirely different perspectives, will uncover more of the truth than would a single investigator, no matter how industrious and objective.
A presumption is a conclusion or deduction that the law requires the trier-of-fact to make in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
Inferences are permissive; they are conclusions or deductions the trier-of-fact may reasonably make based on the facts that have been established by the evidence, but the trier-of-fact is not required to do so.
The two presumptions with which criminal trials start are the presumption of sanity and the presumption of innocence.
The presumption of sanity requires that all defendants be presumed sane unless sufficient evidence of their insanity is proven, usually by clear and convincing evidence.
The presumption of innocence requires the trier-of-fact to accept that the defendant is innocent unless the prosecution meets its burden to prove that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Burdens of Proof:
The concept of the “burden of proof” actually encompasses two separate burdens: the burden of production and the burden of persuasion.