Legal Rights
Legal Rights
Elisia Jackson
Introduction to Criminal Justice
Criminals have legal rights during trial procedures. Without these rights there would be so much confusion and controversy in the court system today. There are four of them that I will give a brief summarization of and explain to you the consequences that could possibly happen if these legal rights were no longer upheld in the court system today. They are; the right to confront witnesses, the right to an impartial jury, the right to counsel at trial, and last but not least the right to be competent trial.
The right to confront witnesses is legal right. The sixth amendment gives the defendant the right to be confronted by the witnesses against them (Larry J. Siegel, 2012, 2010). This basically gives the right for the defendant to have the witness me to court and give them the ability to look the witness right in the eye. This also gives the defendant’s lawyer the right to question the witness. If this right wasn’t upheld then there would probably be a lot of false statements or accusations in the trial. It would also be hard to confirm whether or not the witness it telling the truth, because anyone can pick up a piece of paper and write down what they want to, but when it comes to looking that person right in the eye it makes a whole lot of difference, because it gives the defense a chance to look at the body language of the witness and also, when it comes to the matching up of the statements, the witness could write down something, but then when it comes to testifying if they are lying then what they wrote down and what they are actually saying could be totally different and if this right was no longer upheld there could be innocent people going to jail or a lot of criminals getting away with the crime that they have committed. Also if the legal right wasn’t upheld how could the jury or the judge go off of a written statement that could have be written by anyone, if this
Elisia Jackson
Introduction to Criminal Justice
Criminals have legal rights during trial procedures. Without these rights there would be so much confusion and controversy in the court system today. There are four of them that I will give a brief summarization of and explain to you the consequences that could possibly happen if these legal rights were no longer upheld in the court system today. They are; the right to confront witnesses, the right to an impartial jury, the right to counsel at trial, and last but not least the right to be competent trial.
The right to confront witnesses is legal right. The sixth amendment gives the defendant the right to be confronted by the witnesses against them (Larry J. Siegel, 2012, 2010). This basically gives the right for the defendant to have the witness me to court and give them the ability to look the witness right in the eye. This also gives the defendant’s lawyer the right to question the witness. If this right wasn’t upheld then there would probably be a lot of false statements or accusations in the trial. It would also be hard to confirm whether or not the witness it telling the truth, because anyone can pick up a piece of paper and write down what they want to, but when it comes to looking that person right in the eye it makes a whole lot of difference, because it gives the defense a chance to look at the body language of the witness and also, when it comes to the matching up of the statements, the witness could write down something, but then when it comes to testifying if they are lying then what they wrote down and what they are actually saying could be totally different and if this right was no longer upheld there could be innocent people going to jail or a lot of criminals getting away with the crime that they have committed. Also if the legal right wasn’t upheld how could the jury or the judge go off of a written statement that could have be written by anyone, if this