Responsive Sentences: Case Study

6, and 7). As mentioned before, Justice Sotomayor has been very outspoken in cases that deal with police officers being granted the legal benefit of the doubt. Justice continued by saying that her colleagues were sanctioning a shoot first, think later policy (Barnes, 2017, para. 8, and 10). Also, Sotomayor added that in the particular case it is unclear who's in the wrong. The author goes on by summarizing the case of Salazar-Limon. The officer suspected that the driver (Salazar-Limon) was driving drunk so he pulled him over which later resulted in a struggle. The driver started walking back to his car when officer drew his gun and order hi to stop. Next, the officer shot the driver because he was reaching toward his waistband, as if reaching for the weapon. No weapon was found. Sotomayor cited media reports of incidents involving individuals reaching for their waistbands and being shot at by police officers, but the lower courts said that Salazar-Limon gave controverting evidence which made officer's use of force reasonable ( Barnes, 2017, para. 12, and 16).

I believe that Adrian Vega is in no way guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Quinn Liu’s testimony is unreliable. He says that he didn’t see the passenger in the car that night. Three out of four streetlights were out. How could he not see the passenger, when he was standing on his porch looking at the passenger side of a car on the street? And how could he identify the color of a shirt in low light, differentiating light blue from white in the yellowy light of a streetlamp? The only conclusion is that he was either embellishing what he saw or making things up. That makes his testimony unreliable, and if his testimony was the basis for the prosecution’s case, that means that their case was build on a faulty ground. Tony DeLuca was jealous, and

The court had reason that these facts, taken together, constitute evidence of presence at the scene, participation in a show of force, association, during the attack, and flight. This evidence also supports the inference that the Mace was sprayed to incapacitate Mr. Tucker, so as to allow Mr. Anderson and the others to leave the crime scene without restraint or further identification of the attacker or his vehicle. This evidence is fully sufficient to support the jury 's finding that Mr. Kobel was an accomplice in acting with Mr. Anderson with a common intent and purpose. As an accomplice, Mr. Kobel is guilty to the same extent that Mr. Anderson is guilty.

Rationale: The courts reasoning in this case is two-fold: First it examines what is an accepted deviance by a judge using discretion to sentence a defendant and questioned whether the judge in excersising discretion so clearly go outside the scope of discretion to overly charge Stark. Two: Did judge in using discretion so unfairly sentence Stark excessively that the sentence violates state statutory minimum and maximum sentences imposed for second-degree assault. The court found that while Judges do have discretion and can exercise that discretion as that judge sees fit it is in no way a permission to overly sentence a defendant outside the acceptable range of punishment.

Her attorney argued that she should never have been brought to trial because the material evidence resulted from an illegal, warrant less search. Because the search was unlawful, he maintained that the evidence was illegally obtained and must also be excluded. In its ruling, the Supreme Court of Ohio recognized that ?a reasonable argument? could be made that the conviction should be reversed ?because the ?methods? employed to obtain the evidence?were such as to offend a sense of justice.? But the court also stated that the materials were admissible evidence. The Court explained its ruling by differentiating between evidence that was peacefully seized from an inanimate object, such as a trunk, rather than forcibly seized from an individual. Based on this decision, Mapp's appeal was denied and her conviction was upheld.

The criminal justice system plays a fundamental role in achieving justice, as the system aims to protect all members of the community fairly and equally. However, in the criminal case of R v Loveridge, it is evident that the justice system fails to apply the law to equally balance the needs of the victims and the community. In this case, the offender Kieran Loveridge pleaded guilty to five counts of offences; three charges of common assault, one charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and one charge of manslaughter by an unlawful and dangerous act, the victim being Thomas Kelly, Loveridge received 4 years’ non-parole for manslaughter, Loveridge’s total effective sentence therefore is 7 years and 2 months with an effective

1. Did officer Smith have reasonable suspicion to make the initial stop of this vehicle?

Forcelli explains his displeasure of our broken criminal justice system when he states, “The sad part is that getting an innocent man out of jail is way, way, way harder than putting a guilty man in jail.” When detectives are constantly pressured to close cases and produce high conviction rates it can cause in accuracies in convictions. Garry’s case is a perfect example of how a case with minimal evidence can result in an innocent getting placed in prison. Garry has sat in prison for over 20 years waiting to appeal his case and plead his innocence. The ease of convicting an innocent man should be consistent with difficulty of exonerating an innocent man. In Garry’s case he awaits a decision from a judge where the judge has three options, to exonerate him, grant a retrial, or

The defense is not disputing the facts that Mr. Dents committed all the crimes that he has been found guilty of but we feel that the prosecution is being a little harsh with their sentence recommendation. Did Mr. Dents murder and kidnap, Ms. Opee? Yes. Did Mr. Dents have drug paraphernalia in his residence when it was searched? Yes. Did Mr. Dents strike Officer T. Chur? Yes. Does Mr. Dents deserve the death penalty or the sentence of state prison for these crimes? We say, no!

The Australian justice system implements the adversarial system in which opposing parties present their case before an unbiased decision maker, to ensure procedural fairness and the principles of natural justice are upheld.The system has been structured this way to ensure justice is served for the victim, offender and the broader community. The nature of justice is that it is equal to all, fair from bias and is accessible. In the case on R v Rolfe and R v Weston (2017) the two offenders; Timothy Rolfe and John Weston, members of the Rebels Outlaw Motorcycle Club were sentenced at the NSW Supreme Court on a joint criminal enterprise for the murder of 29-year-old Laurence Starling. The killing was motivated by revenge for an unpaid extortion debt of $200,000 between the deceased’s business partner Mr Fields and a high-ranking member of the ‘’Rebels’’ who sent his subordinates to seize Mr Field’s assets as compensation. The complex circumstances of the crime were problematic for the justice system because particular methods had to be implemented in the process of achieving justice however the justice system was relatively effective in reaching a just outcome for majority of the stakeholders due to its resource efficiency, responsiveness, accessibility, standards of fairness, protection of individual rights and meeting society’s needs.

The first section is for the mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison for first and second-degree murder and treason. The second section deals with firearms offences. The third section of mandatory minimum sentences address repeat offenders in seven distinct categories, which involve impaired driving and possession of unauthorized weapons (Canada, 2013). The last category of MMS in Canada deals with hybrid offences. These were implemented in the Canadian legislation in 1995. If an offender commits a crime that has been determined to result in a mandatory minimum sentence within the Canadian Legislation, the judge must implement that sentence no matter what the aggravating or mitigating factors are. Due to this sentencing legislation, many innocent people are serving time in prison due to a false conviction and the lack of judicial discretion in their individual case. Even though mandatory minimum sentences offer more costs then rewards, some politicians, community members and victims of crime still support it due to the proposed retributive and deterrent effects. There have been many cases and arguments against mandatory minimum sentences especially due to the fact that it restricts the judge’s discretion during the sentencing process. These will be discussed in more depth throughout this paper.

Furthermore, throughout sentencing and punishment various legal and non-legal measures have been implemented to ensure that sentences for those convicted are appropriate and effective to enable rehabilitation and reintegration into society and provide the community with a sense of justice and security. The provision of statutory and judicial guidelines means that limits are placed on a judge’s discretion when sentencing, thus ensuring sentencing consistency. These guidelines were established in relation to the case R v. Jurisic (1998). The defendant Jurisic, pleaded guilty to three charges of dangerous driving occasioning in grievous bodily harm. He was found under the influence of cocaine on one of these charges. He was sentences to 18 months home detention, lost his driver’s licence for one year and was put on a good behaviour bond for two years. This was through to be lenient and was appealed by the DPP. The appeal was upheld and the sentence was replaced by two years imprisonment and two years disqualification of his driver’s

“In Barker v. Wingo, the Court stressed the legitimate reasons for the 16 trial continuances. But is there a danger that prosecutors might illegitimately seek continuances?”

The Courts cannot simply impose a sentence that a victim wants nor sentence an offender based on what the public wants. Two ideologies in sentencing that seem to be in a constant conflict is that idea of individualised justice and consistency. Individualised justice (“individualism”) refers to the idea that courts should look at all the relevant circumstances of a particular case and the sentence given is in light of these

Concluding remarks on why we need to issue more than ten years of sentences to offenders of vehicular manslaughter