Civil And Criminal Justice: What Are Witnesses?

Prosecutors normally meet witnesses at a relatively early stage in the proceedings to discuss special measures and related issues. The witness’s overall subjective experience of participating in criminal proceedings might thereby be enhanced.

Provide support for an individual to check the benefits and allowances to which they are entitled.

Another obvious individual that can be found within the court is an attorney. They also play an important role, there are attorneys for both parties meaning the plaintiff and the defendant. Attorneys can be either hired by each party or an attorney can be appointed to them by the court. Their role in the courtroom, “is to bring out the facts that put his or her client’s case in the most favorable light, but do so using approved legal procedures… On relatively rare occasions defendants in criminal cases or parties in civil cases attempt to present their case themselves, without using a lawyer. Parties who act on their own behalf are said to act pro se” (Courtroom Participants). Attorneys represent people within the court for those who have little to no knowledge of the law. A party with an attorney has a great possibility of win a case as opposed to not having legal representation. Attorneys have

The courtroom is a vital part of the criminal justice system, and a major role in the judicial branch of our government. In the courtroom there are specified roles given to certain people that allow them to to actively engage in the system and get it to work efficiently and properly so that justice is served. The major roles of the courtroom work group are: Police officer, prosecutor, defense attorney, judge, defendant, victim, bailiff, court reporter, and the jury. In this essay I will describe in depth the responsibilities of each of these important courtroom characters.

The judge is the referee between the Crown and the defence who aim to prove their side of the story. The judge ensures both the prosecution and the defence meet the rules of evidence. Consequently, he decides whether the evidence provided

A fire rose within to burn social economic barriers that imprisoned me from achieving an education. As a member of a low-income household, I continually witnessed my parents struggling to pay for utilities, rent, and groceries. Although we received government assistance, it never seemed to be enough. My father worked long hours at a dairy factory to provide for our family, but his addiction to alcohol took most of his income. My mother depended on government assistance due to her chronic asthma and arthritis. Not being able to rely on my parents for stability, my six older siblings were forced to drop out of high school to become providers of their own.

An eyewitness testimony is unreliable because of many different things. Sometimes when witnesses see something they don’t see the whole crime, but only parts which could cause the wrong people to be in trouble. When it’s a serious crime the trial could take years and when asked to stand trial against the perpetrator the witness’s memory could not be fully correct anymore. You could forget important things or get mixed up with things you’ve seen somewhere else, like in a movie. Another reason they are unreliable is Because individuals with certain psychological disorders, like antisocial personality disorder and substance dependence, are at high risk for criminal involvement, they are also at high risk for false identifications by eyewitnesses.

There has been considerable interest and study in the accuracy or inaccuracy of the use of eyewitness testimonies in the current criminal justice system. Results collated by several studies add to the bulk of literature suggesting that the current usage of eyewitness testimony by the legal system is far from ideal. Currently, high emphasis is being placed on reviewing and reconsidering eyewitness accounts (Leinfelt, 2004). In particular, recent DNA exoneration cases have substantiated the warnings of eyewitness identification researchers by showing that mistaken eyewitness identification was the largest single factor contributing to the conviction of innocent people (Wells & Olson, 2003). In this essay, the use of eyewitness testimony in the criminal justice system will be explored, with a particular focus on the impreciseness of this practice.

During the trial, all evidence from both the prosecution and the defense is brought forward, and witnesses are brought in to testify in front of the judge or jury. This is when the prosecuting attorney pleads his case of guilt and the defense attorney casts doubt on the prosecution’s case, while proving the innocence of their client. Each trial has a set routine that it mostly adheres to. It starts with each attorney giving their opening statements, moving on to the presenting their cases while

* In the criminal courts a judge and sometimes a jury hears a witnesses testimony and other evidence and decide cases by applying relevant law to the relevant facts. People who are not satisfied with a trial court decision appeal cases to judges in the appellate courts.

Eyewitness identification and testimony play a huge role in the criminal justice system today, but skepticism of eyewitnesses has been growing. Forensic evidence has been used to undermine the reliability of eyewitness testimony, and the leading cause of false convictions in the United States is due to misidentifications by eyewitnesses. The role of eyewitness testimony in producing false confessions and the factors that contribute to the unreliability of these eyewitness testimonies are sending innocent people to prison, and changes are being made in order to reform these faulty identification procedures.

“Witness for the Prosecution” superbly demonstrated a realist view of the operating procedures in a courtroom. The actors within the courtroom were easy to identify, and the steps transitioned smoothly from the arrest to the reading of the verdict. The murder trial of Leonard Vole provided realistic insight into how laws on the books are used in courtroom proceedings. With the inferior elements noted, the superior element of the court system in “Witness

Once the jurors had been sworn in, the prosecuting barrister began with her opening statement. She reminded the jury of their role, which was to weight up the evidence in order to decide on the facts of the case. In comparison, the role of the judge was to interpret the law and direct the jury accordingly. Although there was reference to statute when the defendant was read his charge, the remainder of the trial was less concerned with the law and more focused on establishing the facts of the case. The prosecution called 3 witnesses in total, all of which were police officers. Once they arrived in the witness stand, they were asked to swear an oath.

There are many different reasons a person can find themselves in a court as the defendant.

My research was done through the observation of criminal court. I was there to observe interaction between the judge, attorneys and defendants, and criminal court felt like the best place to do so. The local court that I attended handled the pre-trial matters such as arraignments and preliminary hearings. I stayed for all of the proceedings for the day to maximize my observation. I wanted to get a feel for everything the court does on a given day. I was eager to see how interactions between people in real court differs from what you see on TV.