Law is an authoritative driver of human behavior that continues to become heavier through the

Our society for the most part has a set of written laws by which it operates under. Laws govern our behavior in society and list punishments by which individuals that break them will be prosecuted and sentenced. Our criminal justice system is essential made up of three major intuitions which see a case from the beginning and through the trial and finally to the punishment phase ("How Does the Criminal Justice System Work?," 2014). Our society needs laws and punishment for those who violet the laws otherwise we would live in a world of chaos. In this paper we will examine various aspects of the criminal process from arrest through sentencing and appeal.

Jurisprudence explores what would be the simplest manifestation of law so as to create a civil society society where both individual liberty and normative goals are practiced. Should the the aim of law be primarily centered on the protection of individual liberty or, instead, the normative goals geared toward the benefit of of civil society? The laws in any society ought to not be centered on normative goals it ought to conjointly defend individual liberty.

To be sure, modern laws are made to express the general will, a will that aims at the common good. This means that laws in most cases intend to protect every social member’s rights under the principle of justice and fairness. For telling examples one need to look no further than American judicial system. The access to the two courts systems, one federal court and one state court, provides citizens with the greatest potential to have their legal problems

In August 2015, the case Miller V Davis brought to light the complicated relationship between law and morality. Indeed, Mrs Davis a county clerk in Rowan county (Kentucky), is being sued for not delivering marriage licences to same sex couples as she believes that homosexuality is morally wrong. Thus, despite the fact that same-sex marriage has been made legal by the U.S Supreme Court since June 2015. Ought individuals to apply the law though it is in inadequacy with their moral beliefs? Do the law should be totally free from any moral influence? Many legal scholars have argued on these questions, as well as trying to define the terms “law” and “morality”. While no one has agreed to a universal definition, law can be defined as a “body of rules, whether proceeding from formal enactment or from custom, which a particular state or community recognizes as binding on its members or subjects”. On the other hand, morality is referred to as an “ethical wisdom” , the set of common values unifying a society. This essay will discuss the role of morality in the law, while analysing different legal school of thoughts arguing on the topic. First of all, positivists such as Bentham, Austin and Hart, argued that morality should not interfere with the law as it is created by a legitimate authority. On the other hand, naturalist theorists, such as Aristotle, Fuller and Dworkin, believed in the existence of a “higher law”, highly influenced by morals, has to be integrated in a legal system

The book Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court written by Amy Bach reflects upon “ordinary injustice” that members of society fall victim to by the American criminal justice system. In short, the phrase “ordinary injustice” comes from the improper acts that have become second nature to court officials but has yet to be explained and resolved by other actors in the court. It is noted in the text that “ordinary injustice results when a community of legal professionals becomes so accustomed to a pattern of lapses that they can no longer see their role in them” (Bach 2). This recurring pattern has been easy to identify by outsiders but difficult to handle by insiders of the court. Bach supports this idea by making clear that, “proving mistakes, both visible and invisible, [is] very difficult in the criminal justice system, even for those who are insiders” (258).

In such a habitate, the need of law to become a force is beyond the individual to control. Once the accusation had been passed and the trials started, any attempt to suspect the process will lead to punishment. Miller’s simple theme is fundamental to American literature. The United States has a league based on individualism.

Despite the fact that the criminal law is essentially a moral enterprise, the legally-trained actors in the criminal justice system rarely explicitly examine exactly what moral principles the system is enforcing. One reason for the absence of moral analysis is that most lawyers are not trained in moral philosophy. Generally, legal education has never seriously attempted to incorporate moral principles into instruction.”

In our world, today, it happens on occasion that we, like Hale, put too much justice on the fairness that our court system is said to have. It has happened that someone was convicted of a crime that the person did not commit or a person, who committed a crime receives too strict, or more commonly the case, a

Section three of Chapter Eight titled Doing Justice begins with the following sentence “It should be obvious that laws and trials mean something.” The role that legislated laws play in maintaining the stability and integrity of our society is something that many individuals assume to be determined by unbiased social convention. Throughout Section three the perceived significance of the law is critically examined. Additionally, the section analyzes the effectiveness of implemented legislation in the dispensation of justice to all American citizens.

In the United States, we have laws that require punishment for people that conduct themselves in a negative social behavior. Understanding how our court systems utilize this legislation to ensure that negative social behavior can be corrected. When looking at how these laws are placed into use in our criminal justice systems, one must understand the difference between the court terminology of law on the books and law in action (Neubauer and Fradella, 2009).

America has long taken pride in being a nation of idealism and of freedom. Still, while these values have remained constant, other areas of the American mindset have evolved repeatedly over the brief course of America’s history. Nothing could illustrate this change more than the complex, developing, relationship between American citizens and their criminal justice system. Each era of American history shows the mindset of its time through the courts. From the extreme Puritans, and their deeply spiritual, irrational cases, to the politically charged events of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and forward into the hodgepodge of contemporary justice, one can read the American conscience by examining the criminal cases at its forefront.

Since the spoken word, hundreds of philosophers have defined law in different ways. Philosophy allows people to study the nature of people’s beliefs which can differ over time. Not even laws are exempt from the opinions of philosophers. Seeing law in different ways allows people to come to different conclusions about legal cases. The Fugitive Slave Law was a controversial law in American history which allowed slave-owners to capture their slaves who have fled north to free states. Once, a group of emancipators in Boston were tried for helping an escaped slave flee to Canada. These emancipators challenged the Fugitive Slave Law in United States v Morris. According to the Fugitive Slave Law, helping an escaped slave is in violation of the law. In this case, the jurors let the emancipators free for helping a slave escape slavery to Canada. This leads to the question “Did the jurors in Morris do the right thing?” Philosophy gives us the tools to analyze the legality of the juror 's actions and answer this question. Natural Law theory, Positivism, Legal Realism, Neo-natural law theory, and Paul Butler’s theory of law all provide different outlooks to answering this question. Despite having differing beliefs about the role of morality and law, these philosophies all conclude that the jurors in Morris did the right thing.

Everyday people wake up and follow certain rules of behaviors. Brushing your teeth, following a dress code, not murdering an annoying classmate. All of these things are societal norms, written and unwritten rules of acceptable behaviors and morals. Over time norms can change in reflection of fluctuating beliefs and mores. These societal norms are generally reflected in the laws of any given country. However, sometimes in the process of change, the norms and laws get off balance. This can make the laws ineffective. No matter what the law states, if a significant portion of citizens decide to ignore, it might as well not even exist. Many times a change in social mores and norms can be observed in the court cases that arise from the clash between

This series of books culminated in Moral Judgment: Does the Abuse Excuse Threaten our Legal System in 1997. Concerned about forces in our society threatening to undermine our moral sense, Wilson demonstrates in this book how our judicial system has compromised its obligation to discriminate between right and wrong. Citing highly publicized verdicts, he makes a case for re-examining the ethical drift of contemporary jurisprudence. Today's headlines, he claims, are proof that our judicial system relentlessly subjects itself to forces that limit its capacity to resolve even the gravest moral issues: judging guilt or innocence in the most grievous capital crimes. In a sense, Wilson sends a strongly worded message to criminal justice administrators:

Horrigan, B, _Adventures in Law & Justice: exploring the big legal questions in Everyday Life_, Lawbook Company, Sydney, 2003