Adjudication And Oversight Essay

There are two primary roles played in the criminal justices system, adjudication and oversight. To first understand how these are two primary roles in the justice system, then a clear definition of each term is needed. Adjudication is defined as “one of the two key roles of the criminal courts; to process defendant who have been arrested by the police and formally charged with criminal offenses” (Hemmens, Brody, & Spohn, 2013). On the other hand, oversight is “an important function of courts, particularly appellate courts. The process of reviewing the decisions of lower courts and of criminal justice official to endure that proper procedures were followed and that neither laws nor constitutional provisions were violated” (Hemmens, Brody, & Spohn, 2013).

Adjudication is used to process defendants who have

already been arrested by officers and charged with some sort of criminal offense in which prosecutors decide how and who should be charged and brings the defendant into a state court to present their case. The judge and jury of this court then decides, according to the law, if the defendant is accountable for a crime and if convicted of one, how they should rule the sentence. Other important figures in the adjudication role are the law enforcement and correctional officers since police bring in the defendant and the correction officers make the postsentencing decision that will affect the offender’s punishment. To reiterate, however, it is the still court that can only make the appropriate and legal punishment. Another ideal to consider with adjudication is it is considered the most common court function in the U.S. court systems; this is because there are multitudes of trial courts and criminal defendants that have to be processed rather than filed appeals.
The second primary role is oversight that is particularly used in the appellate courts and with the entire criminal justice system.

First of all, for cases that are appealed at a high level, the appellate courts then decide how the case was handled at the lower level, meaning these courts can decide if the procedures such as selection of the jury was correct or if the defendant was either denied or granted assistance of counsel. Another decision that is made by these courts is if a trial is appealed months or years later, the appellate court then influences what can happen to the case or what should have occurred at the lower leveled courts; this ideal and decision is core of oversight in courtrooms. Also, appellate courts can oversee any action of criminal justice officials, this means they can see if the behavior of court actors, such as police officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, etc., complies or violates any laws or requirements. Therefore, this function of the appellate courts, such as with the U.S. Supreme Court, can monitor and tell court actors how to act is one of the very important fundamentals of oversight in the criminal justice

system.