Procedural Propriety Exercised By Administrative Bodies

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

These rules have been developed in order to try and keep the process fair to both sides and ensure consistency between trials. The implementation of legal aid ensures that poorer offenders have access to the legal system and receive a fair trial. The measures both legal and non-legal through the criminal trial process ensure that each offender receives a fair trial in which they can be correctly convicted and effectively sentenced.

The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights are most notable for their protection of the rights of suspected and accused individuals. All to often we forget it also covers the rights of those persons convicted of a crime. There are two positions when it comes the rights of convicted and imprisoned persons, which are rights-are-retained and rights-are-lost. In retrospect, they are both right because prisoners rights may not be granted rights nor shall rights be withheld that are not supported by law. Therefore, prisoners are given Conditional Rights because they are constrained by the legitimate needs of imprisonment. The Conditional Rights of inmates are communication and vision, religious freedom, access to the courts and legal assistance,

Almost every day, we hear about justice being served upon criminals and we, as a society, feel a sense of relief that another threat to the public has been sentenced to a term in prison, where they will no longer pose a risk to the world at large. However, there are very rare occasions where the integrity of the justice system gets skewed and people who should not have been convicted are made to serve heavy prison sentences. When word of this judicial misstep reaches the public, there is social outcry, and we begin to question the judicial system for committing such a serious faux pas.

The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defines fairness to be ‘the quality of treating people equally or in a way that is reasonable’ and justice as ‘the quality of being fair or reasonable’ (Oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com, 2014). Investigation of the characteristics of the Australian Legal System (ALS) including its adoption, structure and operational rules, reveal that for the most part the system is based on these two attributes. This inference is further evidenced by the legally binding operational framework assigned to the financial services industry and reflected in the codes of practice that also guide it.

REFERENCESAustralian Law Reform Commission (1980), Sentencing of Federal Offenders, Discussion Paper No. 15Law Reform Commission NSW (2001), Discussion Paper 33(1996)-Sentencing, (Chapter 7. Parole), Lawlink New South Wales, Online. Available. http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lrc.nsf/pages/DP33CHP7 3.4.2006No Author (2006), Sensible Sentencing NZ Justice: Why Parole?, Safe NZ, Online. Available. http://www.safe-nz.org.nz/paole.htm 3.4.2006Travis, L.F. (1995). Introduction to criminal justice (pp307

In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled the Eighth Amendment prohibited citizens under the age of eighteen from being sentenced to life in prison without consideration of extenuating circumstances. In 1963, not even two weeks after his seventeenth birthday, Henry Montgomery murdered Charles Hurt and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Montgomery, now sixty-nine years old, is challenging the state of Louisiana’s authority to keep him behind bars. Should he, along with many others in the same situation, be given the chance to prove himself as an upstanding citizen of the United States of America? Montgomery’s and other prisoner’s freedom hangs in the balance as the nine justices of the Supreme Court debate whether or not they should be granted collateral review.

The second supporting argument that Parliament imposes the judiciary to place too much emphasis on incarceration is characterized by the reduction of credit for pre-sentence custody credit. Fortunately, this was amended in 2014. The Truth in Sentencing Act, one of the government’s early “tough on crime” laws was passed in 2009, but became operative on Feb. 22, 2010. This Act contributed to the changes regarding the credit offenders received for pre-sentence detention or “dead-time,” that does not count towards any parole or early release eligibility. This curbed judge’s ability to give a break on sentencing when a convicted offender has spent lengthy time in pre-trial jail custody. This discount in sentencing had evolved to recognize that

“Inter-judge sentencing disparity, in the view of sentencing reformers, offends important rule of law principles, erodes respect for the courts, and undermines the deterrent effect of criminal law.” (Scott, 4) The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, were created by the United States Sentencing Commission, were put in place to minimize unwarranted disparity among the sentences handed out by judges. These same guidelines that helped to decrease disparity among the sentences that same offenders received or did not receive, were made advisory in a serious of decisions from 2005 to 2007. (Scott, 1) Giving too much power to judges, through the advisory of the federal sentencing guidelines, has since created a surge in inter-judge disparities. Unwarranted

In the article, “Supreme Court Decision Focuses State Attention on Sentencing Regimes,” written by Don Stemen and Daniel F. Wilhelm, the authors expand the idea of the actions taken to determine the criminal sentence in the Blakely v. Washington case. In the case, Blakely argued that this sentencing procedure deprived him of his federal Sixth Amendment right to have a jury determine beyond a reasonable doubt all facts legally essential to his sentence (Blakely v. Washington, n.d). During the sentencing process, numerous aspects has to be taken into consideration to give the defendant an appropriate sentence.

Mandatory sentencing involves the implementation of legislation to remove an element of judicial discretion by imposing minimum or mandatory sentences for a particular offence or type of offender. From the perspective of society, mandatory sentencing may be said to promote the rule of law in ensuring that laws are predictable and applied equally across all individuals by aiming to match the punishment to the crime, as well as reduce crime and recidivism. Depending on the outlook taken, mandatory sentencing may be said to promote the individual’s right to a fair trial as it encourages consistency but by the same token a conflict arises in that it strips the judiciary of the power to tailor sentences to the unique circumstances of each case.

Judicial discretion was prevalent over the first half of the last three decades, but has been regulated by legislature since 1984. Discretion by definition is the authorization of deciding as one thinks fit, absolutely or within limits (Ntanda, 1999). Indeterminate sentencing, traditionally, has afforded judges considerable discretion over the resolve of criminal sentencing. “While such discretion theoretically allows judges to tailor sentences to the circumstances of individual crimes and criminals, thereby achieving a sort of ex post fairness, it also permits variation in sentences that may not be warranted by the observable facts of the case, reflecting instead the judge’s own preferences” (Miceli, 2008, p.207). The punishment

Observers have noted in recent years a shift in government policy toward what is perceived as ‘redressing the balance’ in criminal justice, to be more advantageous to victims and less so to the accused. (have implications for current exclusionary rules)

“It’s a general problem not specific to the law of the United Kingdom a criminal justice system characterized by an emphasis on crime control rather than due process will inevitably produce miscarriage of justice.”

Administrative discretion is a discretionary action is informal and, therefore, unprotected by the safeguards inherent in formal procedure. A public official, for example, has administrative discretion when he or she has the freedom to make a choice among potential courses of action. Abuse of Discretion is the failure to exercise reasonable judgment or discretion. It might provide a Cause of Action for an unconstitutional invasion of rights protected by the “due process clause” of the Constitution (West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc). So do I think that public administrators