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
Probation officers and remedial treatment pros give social administrations to aid restoration of law wrongdoers in authority or on post trial supervision or parole. This particular field interest me due to the fact that I’ve always wanted to be apart of the law enforcement or justice system. Being a parole officer, I can have the opportunity to help people that are struggling with making bad decisions that could impact their lives forever.
“The criminal justice system is not equipped nor are the professionals working within the system qualified to effectively meet the needs of offenders presenting with mental health issues” (Prior & Jones, 2017, p. 58). Mental health courts were designed to provide diversion for defendants with mental illness into community-supported and court-supervised overseen treatment (“Adult Mental,” n.d.). Making these specialty courts mandatory for the mentally ill would benefit black male defendants the most.
The criminal justice system is a used to protect our society from those who try to harm it. Departments such as courts, and police officers study the behavior of criminals; they want our communities to be safe. When a crime is committed these departments work together to protect the rights of our society and our own. As stated in the textbook, a crime is the “Conduct in violation of the criminal laws of a state, the federal government, or a local jurisdiction for which there is no legally acceptable justification or excuse” (Schmalleger). Our system is a balanced system, there are times where have to think about our own rights as one person, but there are also times where we have to include other people. We must think of our society and
The criminal justice system has been proven to play a very important role in society. The criminal justice system is used to keep the citizens in check and to make sure that the laws that are made are being followed. It also is there to penalize anyone who disobeys the laws. In the criminal justice system, there are 3 main parts, law enforcement, adjudication, and corrections. Law enforcement is self-explainable. It consists of the law enforcers such as police officers and sheriffs. Adjudication is made up of people in the court house such as judges and lawyers. Corrections is made up of jailhouse matters such as prison officials. In these many components of the criminal justice system, there are all put in place to help correct people to do the right thing. There are punitive efforts and rehabilitative efforts. At time, the system may lean towards one category or more, which can be dangerous in terms of disciplinary action. The criminal justice system is more punitive than rehabilitative which makes the system ineffective.
Changes in structure: The government is use to operating within a certain structure and with unification will come changes in structure for both the county and city governments. Under consolidation there will be fewer elected officials than normal along with an elected executive. This hybrid could bring about difficulties for both jurisdictions.
At present, all federal judges have lifetime tenure; it has been this way since the drafting of the United States Constitution. Many contend that when the Constitution was drafted, the life expectancy then was less than half of what it is now in the 21st century. One of the major criterion for selection was the expectation that the candidate had a longer life expectancy. In other words, the candidate must “be young enough to serve for several decades.” By limiting the term of Supreme Court Justices to that of eighteen years, doing so would provide the potential for an increased sensibility to modern politics and life. If we were to continue to adhere to the verbiage of Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution, justices could continue to hold the position provided each exhibits good behavior. The question remains whether the pros would outweigh the cons of bringing new life and younger insight into the Court and would it tip the scales and force our legislators to apply term limits.
Legitimacy of courts has long been an important factor in the judicial system. However, a more recent concern has been diversity. It is becoming increasingly important for the court to represent those who it serves. “The ECJ’s composition remains unreflective of the millions of black and migrant European Union citizens whom it serves”. Judgements of both the domestic courts of England and Wales along with the European Court of Justice, affect the everyday lives of all EU citizens – including those of minority and underrepresented groups. “Outcomes should not be influenced by considerations of political or financial consequences”. Independence is important as it is vital that each judge is able to decide cases solely on the evidence presented to them by the parties in court. Personal independence is always necessary to ensure that the judiciary as a whole of both the land or the community remains independent. In order for the courts to be fully independent, they must represent the diversity of the people and make decisions in accordance with the law with no other influences. With the growing influence of the government over the last century it has become increasingly important that the judiciary fulfils its responsibility to protect the public against unlawful acts of the government. What has therefore also become increasingly more important is the need for the judiciary to be completely independent from the government. The evidence suggests that the courts nowadays are not
Court History and Purpose. The courts are a critical component of American criminal justice because they determine what should happen to people charged with violating the law. Courts are important beyond criminal justice, too. Disputes that arise between private parties, businesses, government officials, and the like are brought to court in order to ensure that they are heard, ideally, in a neutral forum (Siegel, Schmalleger, & Worrall, 2011). Succeeding in liberation and independence is difficult within the world and as simple as legally right and legally wrong. Courts emphasize on the power of the state and the legitimate use of force and protect people against the random use of legislative authority. The tension among the general
Defendants generally are given plea bargaining negotiations “for one or more of the following reason: (a) reduce a charge, (b) elimination of a possible waiver to the criminal court, and (c) agreement for dispositional program… Any plea deal must be entered voluntarily and intelligently, or the conviction could be overturned on appeal (Siegel & Welsh, 2009, p. 504) There are many pleas that a defendant may choose to enter in court. Guilty, not guilty, an Alford Plea, and also nolo contendere, also known as “no contest”. A guilty plea is when the defendant is admitting their guilt to the crime, and giving up their rights to the trial, “more than 90 percent of defendants plead guilty (Siegel & Welsh, 2009, p. 504).” When a defendant pleads not guilty they are saying that they believe that they did not do anything wrong. An Alford Plea is when a defendant is pleading guilty but still claims their innocence.
In addition, each precinct is required to have one to two Justice of Peace Courts, depending on the precincts population. Such courts have very little original jurisdiction over criminal matters limited to Class C misdemeanor and some jurisdiction over civil matters, including small claims. Other functions for Justice of Peace Courts include issuing search and arrest warrants and serving as coroner in counties that have no provision for medical examiners.
Miscarriages of justices occur due to many variables including faulty or wrong confessions, faulty identifications, wrongful DNA evidence, and the police’s overreach of power. On February 9, 1978, a student from the College of William and Mary, located in Williamsburg, Virginia was sexually assaulted at gunpoint. When the police arrived at the scene, she described her assailant as an African-American male about 5’6 in height and weighing around 145. Having gathered this information, the victim agreed to identify her assailant through photo arrays at the police station. Bennett Barbour was identified arrested and in the span of about two months was charged with rape on April 14, 1978. Despite having an alibi, not matching the victim’s description, and having brittle bone disease Barbour was declared guilty by a jury. Barbour’s case is representative of the many cases in which wrongful eyewitness testimony produces miscarriages of justice. Bennett Barbour served 5 years in prison and 29 years of parole until he was cleared of his charges due to DNA evidence when the Virginia Supreme Court cleared his charges.
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.
You have been charged with an either way offence this means that you will get the choice as to whether you trial your case at the Magistrates or Crown Court. In this report I will evaluate the effectiveness of lay people presenting their advantages and disadvantages. I will also evaluate the jury system. As I have explained either way offences can either be very serious or very minor, which is why they are tried at the Crown Court or Magistrates’.
With the rise of Civil Rights Movement in western countries, the circumstances of the criminal victims are getting more attention gradually. Due to this emphasis, it directly led to a first revolution in the criminal justice, the revival Restorative justice. For a criminal justice system, victim support and healing is a priority which might seem an obvious aim. "Restorative Justice" was first introduced by an American professor, Randy Barnett in 1977. Nowadays, restorative justice systems have been applied to criminal justice system in many countries (Tai Wan, Australia, the US and the UK etc). In spite of many researches of restorative justice composed by western scholars, however it has not yet been defined properly and cover over the cons of this system. Restorative Justice repairs the harm that caused by crime and reducing the future harm on victims, there are advantages yet there are also bad. In this essay, I will use the application of the principles of sociology, literature, ethics knowledge to demonstrate argumentation to restorative justice and to reflect the pros and cons. (160words)
William the Conqueror introduced the jury system into England in 1066 after the battle of Hastings. It wasn’t until the 14th century when their roll came to determiner of fact in a case.