In chapter twelve, Joel Samaha has discussed various court proceedings before trial. Samaha begins to elaborate the importance of the prosecutor’s decision in determining whether there is a concrete case against the alleged defendant. The evidence at hand ultimately dictates the proceeding of events in court. Along with evidence, the lack of resources might add to the difficulty in charging an individual. Prosecutors are faced with an overload of cases; ultimately prosecutors are forced to prioritize their cases based on their resources and the evidence provided. The cases that are regarded are then considered for suspect detainment. Probable cause to detain suspects is undergone so that the case may proceed to trial. Typically an arraignment …show more content…
Bail is often left to the judge’s discretion and depending on the seriousness of the offense, the judge can act accordingly to the bail sentence, whether it may be a money bond or a mere promise to appear in court. The judge also has the authority to deny a defendant’s bail if deemed a danger to society. I personally believe the preventive detention act is important, especially in cases of high risk witness to testify against the defendant. U.S. v. Salerno is an intriguing case involving the captain of the Genovese crime family. Charges against Mr. Salerno demonstrated several accounts of racketeering and also alleged murder. Given such a high risk target, the courts rule to confine Mr. Salerno was important to protect …show more content…
Appeals are known as direct attacks because they target the decisions made by the trial court and/or the jury’s guilty verdict in the specific defendant’s criminal trial. If denied a review, the offender may act on another standpoint. Habeas corpus proceeding approaches the case in a different manner and directs the attention to a civil lawsuit. State and federal court review may vary from jurisdiction. State courts provide collateral review for defendants convicted in state court. While the federal court review provides collateral review for defendants in both state and federal court. Habeas corpus is important as the reviewing of cases ensures the accuracy of the case
In Reyes v. Missouri Pac. R. CO., the appellant, Joel Reyes, sought rehabilitation from the defendant, Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, after being run over by one of the defendants trains while lying on the tracks. The appellant claims the defendant was negligent due to its inability to see the plaintiff in time to stop the train. The defendant refutes the plaintiffs claim by blaming the plaintiff for contributory negligence because the plaintiff was believed to be drunk on the night in question based off of pass arrest records . In a motion in limine Reyes ask for the exclusion of the evidence presented by the defense. The trial court, however denied the plaintiff’s request and ruled in favor of the defendant. The plaintiff, Reyes,
Conclusion: Congress hoped to achieve a greater degree of accuracy in assessing flight and danger of arrestees through establishing the Bail Reform Act of 1984, which set objective guidelines for judicial officers in assessing release conditions including taking into account for the first time the probability an offender will re-offend while on pretrial release. It was also hoped that the Act would bring back the community's trust in bond setting practice. Overall, the benefits of the Bail Reform Act of 1984 do exceed any detriments, but some problems do exist. These problems include the uniformity in the application of the Bail Reform Act of 1984, as well as the interpretation of dangerousness to the community. Through future legislative and executive reform, this Act will go through multiple changes until these issues are addressed.
The first clause of the eighth amendment, protects U.S citizens from being held in jail on excessively high bail. The purpose of bail is to free citizens while they await their trials because they can’t be “deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” Specifically, “bail is money that a criminal defendant (a person charged with a crime) pays in order to be...
Steve Bogira, a prizewinning writer, spent a year observing Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse. The author focuses on two main issues, the death penalty and innocent defendants who are getting convicted by the pressure of plea bargains, which will be the focus of this review. The book tells many different stories that are told by defendants, prosecutors, a judge, clerks, and jurors; all the people who are being affected and contributing to the miscarriage of justice in today’s courtrooms.
One contradiction in the job of the prosecutor is that they have nearly limitless direction in critical matters; however, prosecutors’ are also held to a very high ethical standard. Prosecutors must screen cases to determine which ones need to be prosecuted; nevertheless, this is the source of controversy with most people. “What makes charging decisions more intriguing and controversial is the fact that in making this decision, the prosecutor has nearly limitless discretion” (Hemmens, Brody, & Spohn, 2013). This means the prosecutor’s charging decisions are beyond any judicial review, so it must be apparent that a prosecutor
The court case decision revolutionized criminal procedure by holding the rights of the accused guaranteed in the Bill of Rights apply in States, no less than in federal courts, which drew criticism from state courts. The Miranda v. Arizona decision was the Supreme Court’s attempt to balance the rights of a person accused of a crime with the rights of society to prosecute those who commit criminal acts.
The Miranda warnings stem from a United States Court’s decision in the case, Miranda v. Arizona. There are two basic conditions that must be met for Miranda warnings to be required: the suspect must be in official police custody and the suspect must be under interrogation. The suspect goes through a booking process after an arrest. The suspect will have a bond hearing shortly after the completion of the booking process or after arraignment. The arraignment is the suspect’s first court appearance to officially hear the charges filed against him or her and to enter a plea. The preliminary hearing or grand jury proceeding determines if there is substantial evidence for the suspect to be tried for the crime charged. In this essay, I will identify and describe at least four rights afforded criminal defendants at the arrest stage and during pretrial. I will analyze the facts presented and other relevant factors in the scenario provided. I will cite legal authority to support my conclusions.
Firstly, the accused person has a right to a speedy trial. This provision protects accused persons from unnecessary delays. In essence, it seeks to curb delayed commencement of the trial against the accused person after his or her indictment. This clause sets the time limits within which the prosecution should be ready to commence the charging of the accused, a time limit which if by any reason whatsoever is violated, the case is dismissed in totality and the accused released to freedom. For instance, within six months, the prosecution is required to be ready for the trial in all felonies apart from murder charges. This right is observed relatively and circumstances of each specific cases may be the limiting factor to this right.
The criminal trial process is able to reflect the moral and ethical standards of society to a great extent. For the law to be effective, the criminal trial process must reflect what is accepted by society to be a breach of moral and ethical conduct and the extent to which protections are granted to the victims, the offenders and the community. For these reasons, the criminal trial process is effectively able to achieve this in the areas of the adversary system, the system of appeals, legal aid and the jury system.
Stuart v. Nappi was class lawsuit Stuart’s mother filed against school personnel and the Danbury Board of Education because she claimed that her daughter was not receiving the rights granted in the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). Kathy Stuart was a student at Danbury High School in Connecticut with serious emotional, behavior, and academic difficulties. She was suppose to be in special education classes, but for some reason she hardly ever attended them. Kathy was involved in a school-wide disturbance. As a result of her complicity in these disturbances, she received a ten-day disciplinary suspension and was scheduled to appear at a disciplinary hearing. The Superintendent of Danbury Schools recommended to the Danbury Board of Education
After a person suspected of murder has been the trial process begin. During this stage the police will give the evidence they have complied to the prosecution. The prosecution will make a determi...
The excessive bail provision of the eight amendment to the united States constitution is based on an old English common law right of Englishmen and the English Bill of RIghts. In pre independence america, bail law was based on English law. Some of the colonies simply guaranteed their subjects the protections that they would have in Britain. However in 1776, after the declaration of Independence, colonies abandoned that of British law and enacted their own versions of bail law. In the Virginia 1776 constitution it stated excessive bail ought not be required, but in 1785 they added that those shall be let to bail who are apprehended for any crime not punishable in life or limb, but if a crime be punishable by life or limb, or if it be manslaughter and there be good cause to believe the party guilty thereof, he shall not be admitted to bail. The eight amendment is directly derived form this and the cases that are available for bail have changed over the years. In 178p the Judiciary Act was passed. This act stated that all non capital crimes are bailable and that in capital cases the decisions to detain a suspect, prior to trial was to be left up to the judge. Then in 1966, Congress put into affect th Bail Reform Act which stated that a non capital defendant is to be released, pending trial, on their personal bond, unless the judicial officer determines that such incentives will not adequately assure his appearance at trail.
In order to address the crucial importance of this book review, I shall break down my exposition of the novel into two distinctive sections. The first section I will sermonize will target my deliberation towards the contents of work, themes and subjects of the book. The layout and structure of the content flow effortlessly as the book befalls through chapters that probe a different kind of case that caused innocent human beings to be locked behind bars. These cases that withdraw innocent citizens of their freedom enmesh the lack of evidence and time giving to the defense in order to prove the defendant’s innocence, false accusation involving misjudging of the victim picking of the suspect, and prosecutors that led the victim to believe that the suspect is exigently guilty. Likewise, the theme of the book is
The benefit of a bail is for an accused individual to be released if they are able to pay the bail amount. The amount of the bail is determined by an appointed judge. Ultimately, the bail is considered a form of “down payment” left as a way to insure that the accused individual will be showing up to their court. Another benefit of our bail system is that it’s a good way to release individuals who commits minor offenses. At this point our jails are overcrowded. The majority of jails and prisons in the United States have exceeded over capacity limits at one point. This is in part because of our get tough on crime rules. Individuals who commit 3 or more offenses in are sentenced to life in prison. This is not the case in every state however; the
In the criminal court, you are looked upon differently because of the conviction. Everyday life will be hard because you can get rejected from jobs, loans, licensing, traveling out the country, and even housing (Messina). Bail reform to let people who have a charges that is not violent and a treat to the community go into program like a house arrest is more fair than to have them sit in a jail til who knows when the trial is. Staying a jail only will only expenditure more tax people money. As the court system is increasingly taking longer and longer to discharge cases due to shrinking budgets and a rollback on available resources, the possibility of a lengthy pretrial detention only increases, inviting the risk of detainees losing jobs, missing social and familial obligations and incurring social stigma (Reese).