Pros And Cons Of Bench Trial

The criminal trial process aims to provide justice for all those involved, while it succeeds in the majority of cases, it effectiveness is influenced and reduced by certain factors. These include the legal representation involved in a case and the availability of legal aid, the capacity of the jury assessing the trial, the credibility of scientific evidence and the impact of social media on the trial process. Due to such flaws the criminal trial process is not always an effective means of achieving justice.

Justice of the peace courts is low-level courts. These courts are found only in Arizona, Delaware, Louisiana, Montana, and Texas. Justice of the peace courts has original jurisdiction over Class C misdemeanors that include: traffic violations, bail jumping, and bail check writing and minor civil matters that issue search and arrest warrants depending on certain situations. Justices are known for keeping the peace. They can arrest criminals or insane people, order the removal of people who behave in a disorderly fashion in a public place and carry out other duties designed to maintain or restore a peaceful community. The cons to Justices of the peace is that they have limited power in criminal and civil cases. Their powers of civil jurisdiction

One reason why jury trials shouldn’t be an option is because jurors are incompetent. The cartoon of Document E isn’t just humorous, it’s also pretty true. Jurors are forced

Every day people are convicted of crimes or arrested for other reasons. Once they are convicted they are summoned to court, this begins the jury process. Citizens are randomly chosen to serve on jury duty. The citizens on the jury will use the jury system to determine if the person being accused is guilty or innocent. Trials can become very long or they can be short it just depends on the topic and how long it takes to decide on what the consequences will be. The jury system is the main trial and the main decision of whether or not someone is right or wrong.

To start off, according to the 2010 annual report from the office of the United States courts, bench trials have acquitted 137 cases out of 394, while jury trials have acquitted 286 cases out of 2,352. This evidence indicates that with bench trials, the chances of being acquitted are higher than jury trials.

In America’s justice system, a grand jury is a group of citizens called to decide whether probable cause exists to believe that a suspect committed the crime with which she or he has been charged (Gaines G-4). In the Central District of California, prospective jurors who report and are not excused or postponed, the Jury Clerk will use a computer program to randomly select 23 members and ten alternates for each grand jury. A grand jury designated “investigatory” meet for a 12-month term, while a grand jury designated “accusatory” meets for a 6-month term. A grand jury has 23 members and meets once a week, always on the same weekday. Grand juries do not meet on weekends or Mondays. The average workday is 5 hours. Absences for medical appointments, vacations, graduations, etc. may be accommodated, but 16 members must be present for the grand jury to conduct business. The grand jury serves the United States District Court, Central District of California. In contrast, a trial jury is asked to reach a verdict based on the evidence presented during a civil or criminal trial; a grand jury meets in secret to consider whether there is sufficient evidence to justify a formal criminal charge against someone. That formal criminal charge is called an “indictment” (Central).

Juries exists in the criminal trial to listen to the case presented to them and, as a third, non-bias party, decide beyond reasonable doubt if the accused is guilty. For the use of a trial by juror to be effective, no bias should exists in the jurors judgments, the jurors should understand clearly their role and key legal terms, and the jury system should represent the communities standards and views whilst upholding the rights of the accused and society and remain cost and time effective.

This is one of the most supreme points written in the founding principles of our Declaration of Independence according to the American founding fathers, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin. This text in the Declaration of Independence explicitly upbraids King George III for depriving the people’s rights to a trial by jury. American law is focused around centuries of English common law, the collected assemblage of laws that are focused around common sense judgment and decisions and which safeguard the privileges of the individuals. Property proprietorship is a major right of free individuals, and common law creates the tenets we keep. In a lawful argument about property, citizens have a right to a jury trial.

In conclusion a jury trial is more preferable than a bench trial because in a jury trial anything could happen. The jurors need a reasonable doubt to vote not guilty. The juror could say I do not know and that os enough to say not guilty. A bench trial, the judge, would have had a final verdict with all

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)

While evaluating the advantages of a plea jury I found that a plea jury would be under the supervision of the courts and the defendant would give his plea to a guilty plea jury (Appleman, 2010). The plea jury would then decide on the facts to see if the allegations fit the offense, whether the plea was knowing and voluntary and if the sentence proposed is appropriate for the offense. Also, I found that a plea jury’s critical role would be to listen to the defendant’s allocutions instead of explaining his offenses to the judge.

1. When being a prosecutor one must be un-biased despite if they already made up their mind that the accused is guilty. Therefore, we have a saying that all courts and law enforcements should abide by, which is “everyone is innocent until proven guilty.” The prosecutor’s job is to collect evidence that he or she may provide to the court to prove if the defendant is innocent or guilty.

In the Australian legal system, juries have been the subject of debate for many years. Should we have them for criminal trials or will justice be done better through trial by judge alone?

roll. The jury is made up of 12 people from all walks of life who have

There are many productive and negative advantages of the juvenile being tried in an adult court."Minors possess the right to a jury trial in adult court even though in most states don't grant a right to a jury in juvenile court. Juries in the adult court system may be more considerate to the juveniles." (citation needed) In some jurisdictions where dockets and jails are crowded, the court may be inclined to dispose of the juvenile's case more quickly and impose a lighter sentence.