One drug court is unlike any other in the country. Judge Williams’s courts in Georgia’s Glynn and Camden Counties do not honor a major component of rule of law—due process. Due process is fair treatment through the judicial system. It includes, among a few other rights, the rights to receive an impartially fair trial and subsequent reasonable punishment, to grieve or complain against the charges and government official in charge, and to appeal. Judge Amanda William’s drug court is guilty of due process violations in each of the three mentioned major categories of due process. In order to stop the due process violations and bring drug courts around the US into compliance with the rule of law, the drug court system in the US must be …show more content…
Already the charge was unreasonable because the charge was much more severe than the average charge for this type of crime and therefore violated the rule of law. After Dills chose drug court, punishment actually became much worse than even two years in jail. According to West Huddleston, the head of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, most of the jail-time served by members in drug courts are 12 to 24 hours long at a time. However, Dills in her first three years of drug court already had jail stays of 51, 90, and 104 days. After these extended stays, she was then put into solitary confinement for what Judge Williams called “an indefinite period of time” (Very Tough Love). No other drug court in the country uses indefinite jail times as punishment. Judge Williams is not impartial in these sentences. According to Ira Glass, a investigative journalist and host for the public radio show, This American Life, members of the drug court told him that Judge Williams would declare things like, “They 're going to sit their ass over there till they get a better attitude” or “Take them away. You 'll come back when I 'm ready for you” (Very Tough Love). Clearly, Judge Williams’s drug court fails to honor due process because the court is not impartial and jail
Today, in the United States, most citizens are able to appreciate the fair, balanced legal system that is in place. The country suffered many failures before establishing the United States Constitution, and later the Bill of Rights, which became the foundation of the country’s legal system and protection of the citizens’ rights (American Sentinel University). Citizens may take their right to trial or their right to due process for granted, without realizing how life was before these rights were recognized and established. Until the Constitution in 1787, the justice system was not permanent and not quite clear, causing unfair and unjust treatment. Of course, no system can be perfect, but it is possible to discover options that suit the wants
The criminal justice system consists of models and theories that often contradict one another. Of these models are the crime control model, the due process, model, the consensus model and the conflict model. In this paper these models are evaluated and defined, as well as each entity in the criminal justice systems role within each model. Policing, corrections and the court system all subscribe to each model in some way and in a hurried manner in cases that dictate such a response. As described by Erik Luna in the Models of Criminal Procedure, the following statement summarizes the aforementioned most appropriately.
The criminal justice system in the United States has traditionally operated under two fundamentally different theories. One theory is the Crime Control Model. This theory is characterized by the idea that criminals should be aggressively pursued and crimes aggressively punished. The other theory is the Due Process Model. This theory is characterized by the idea that the rights of the accused need to be carefully protected in any criminal justice investigation. (Levy, 1999)
The criminal justice system used today is to follow principles that protect and establish equality for all and while the United States criminal justice system may strive to follow these right of the people, but unfortunately, this is where the system falls short of fundamental American principles. Repeatedly the criminal justice system does the adverse of what it’s supposed to do. It does not protect the many liberties the people should have. Some may argue that the criminal justice system is indeed fair for
In the U.S. the “War on Drugs” has been at the forefront of debates and discussion since it was formally declared by President Nixon in 1971. This war continues to have many problematic consequences today, the most notable being mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offences. This issue has been extensively researched by Kieran Riley with an article in the Boston University Law Journal titled “Trial by Legislature: Why Statutory Mandatory Minimum Sentences Violate the Separation of Powers Doctrine”, Paul Cassell and Erik Luna with a peer-reviewed scholarly article titled “Sense and Sensibility in Mandatory Minimum Sentencing”, and the Families Against Mandatory Minimums organization with a policy report. All of these sources came to the same conclusion, that the many negative aspects of mandatory minimums far outweigh the few positive aspects. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenses that unfairly incarcerate people are against the fundamental values of the American criminal justice system and should be repealed.
Drug Courts came about as a result of a backlogged court system and a steady, rapidly increasing prison population. Drug courts are a form of diversion that helps the offender through rehabilitation and the community through an increased sense of protection, which serves the best interest of everyone. Drug Courts are community based intermediate sanctions that incorporate treatment principles into the Criminal Justice System and divert drug offenders from traditional punishments of probation and prison. The objective of drug courts programs is to treat the underlying problems of addiction among drug offenders and eliminate participants’ future drug use and crime.
The United States has a unique criminal justice system that stems from the unique rights granted to its citizens by the Constitution. The United States Constitution grants the most basic rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and no citizen can be denied these rights without due process of law. Due process is the way in which the criminal justice system ensures that the right person is punished for the right crime. This process includes certain rights of the accused and specific procedures that must be followed to the letter or the accused could be released without having punished for a crime he or she could have
For the past seven and half centuries due process was the mission of men persistent to create justice in the government. The federal courts for years used a method of suspended sentencing as a form of probation which in 1916; the Supreme Court ruled this was unconstitutional. President Coolidge in 1925 signed the Probation Act that gives the court’s permission to throw out imposition sentencing and give the defendant probation. The Speedy Trial Act was enacted by congress in1974 at the point the United States Courts started the agency of Pretrial Service. The mission of this was to decrease crime by allowing individuals to be release into the community awaiting trial to decrease pretrial punishment. In 1982 the Pretrial Services Act was signed by President Reagan. The extending use of Pretrial Services to all federal courts started a specific milestone that we now know as Pretrial Service and Federal Probation system. As of today, officers are involved in the criminal procedure
One of the keys to the achievement of medication courts are that they are viewed as a group court, putting them in accordance with other peacemaking approaches and types of therapeutic equity. Because of the way of remedial equity and group based ways to deal with wrongdoing decrease, it can be hard to sum up parts of medication courts; in any case, regardless of the uniqueness of every court, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals and U.S. Branch of Justice has perceived certain key segments:
In the United States, we see harsh minimum punishments given to drug criminals because the court system, in order
The criminal trial process is an interesting process that takes place in Courtrooms all across the United States and throughout the globe. This study intends to set out the various steps in the criminal trial process in the American justice system. A trial is described as a "legal forum for resolving individual disputes, and in the case of a criminal charge, it is a means for establishing whether an accused person is legally guilty of an offense. The trial process varies with respect to whether the matter at issue is civil in nature or criminal. In either case, a jury acts as a fact-finding body for the court in assessing information and evidence that is presented by the respective parties in a case. A judge presides over the court and addresses all the legal issues that arise during the trial. A judge also instructs the jury how to apply the facts to the laws that will govern in a given case." (3rd Judicial District, 2012)
As we can see, due process has changed our justice system from hastily-prosecution to time consuming investigation of all the facts. We should stop pre-judging the accused person until all of the facts are made known unto us. Due process has given all accused citizens an equal opportunity to tell their story, and the right to question the evidence that was brought against them. Even though due process has guaranteed the accused person his or her right to be heard
In our government today we have due process of law. Due process of law simply means that we have protection against a chance deprivation of life, liberty or property. Within the due process law, if you are to be accused of something it has to be under fair and reasonable circumstances. If we are ever to be arrested of something, under due process it commands that we are taken to court and showed a cause. It is very important that we have due process in the law for the people of the United States. Law enforcement always requires the balancing of two competing social concerns: on one hand, is the government's interest in protecting its citizens and prosecuting criminal conduct; on the other hand, is the right of
The due process and crime control models contrast in the type of justice being sought. The individual citizen and the protection of their rights is at the forefront in the argument towards the due process model. The emphasis is then on the defendant’s rights and not the victim’s rights. In order to lower crime and prevent recidivism, advocates of the due process model see rehabilitation as the answer. Therefore, actors within the Criminal Justice System are held to accountable to the procedures and guidelines in order to insure fair and consistent judicial processes.
American Criminal Justice System The criminal judicial system in America has two main models, the crime control model and the due process model. There has been several debates on which model is the most effective in combating crime in America. Crime control model emphasizes on crime reduction by increasing prosecution powers (Hung-En, 2006). On the other hand, the due process model of crime control aims at increasing the people’s rights and liberty and limiting governmental powers. Unlike the due process model, the crime control model believes in with an increase in governmental powers and reduction of individual freedom in order to mitigate crime in the society.