The stages of a criminal trial are as follows: Selecting of jurors: persons swore to deliver a verdict in a case submitted to them. The reading of the criminal complaint by the court clerk. Prosecution makes an opening statement summarizing the case its desires to present. The defense will follow with its opening statement but are not required to do so. The evidence is submitted by the prosecution and witnesses are questioned. Each element of the crime is established by the prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt. If the prosecutions did not make its case as the defendant feel reliable, the defense can choose to rest. A motion for dismissing is submitted. If the prosecution's evidence is not sufficient for conviction, the judge can agree with the defense and instructs the jury to acquit or exonerate the defense or …show more content…
"The closing statement by the prosecution ends the adversarial portion of the trial"(Bohm & Haley, 2014, p. 314). After closing statements, the judge directs the jurors pertaining to the standards of the law, the charges, the rules of evidence along with possible verdict, to be used to determine guilty or innocent. The judge will also explain to the jury that it must be satisfied with the guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt" (Bohm, & Haley, 2014, p. 315). Beyond reasonable doubt means that if there are two reasons given in a case and both are possible explanation for what happened, taken together with the evidence presented, the jury should give the benefit of the doubt, the jury will then retire to deliberate, to consider all evidence, in a place of total privacy, to reach a ruling or decision. Assuming a conviction, a verdict of guilt, the judge either sentence the defendant on the spot or set sentencing for another
Jurors will thoroughly inspect and weigh over the evidence provided, and process any and all possible scenarios through the elements of crime. If the evidence does not support the prosecutor 's argument and the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury must pronounce the defendant not guilty. If questionable or irrelevant evidence is included in the criminal proceeding, it is the duty of the prosecutor or defendant 's counsel to object and insist that the evidence be excluded by the presiding
Margaret Talbot spends a good deal of time at the outset of the essay describing the situation at Sarasota High School, Yet her primary subject is neither that school nor its students. What is her rhetorical strategy in examining this one school in such dept?
There have been many historical events in history that have impacted America in many ways. For example, famous Speeches given by important people such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the united states which his main goal was to help America recover from the severe economic issues during the 1930’s. Roosevelt used rhetorical devices to persuade desperate Americans, wounded from the Great Depression, by introducing a plan which it will be the best way to recover from the severe crisis that affected Americans. In Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, he used personification, diction, and antimetabole to convey his conflicting feelings about the New Deal, in order to face the economic issues
The vast majority of criminal cases in the United States, the accused pleads guilty and no trial takes place (Siegel,
After a period of time the trial would come to an end. At the end of the court proceedings both sides of the court would give closing statements. These statements would be used to remind the jury of the evidence produced throughout the duration of the trail. These statements are also opportunity for hypothetical scenarios, and campaign to the jurors why they should decide in favor of their client.
Next, comes prosecution of the defendant by the state attorney, then incitement, the filing of information by prosecution to decide whether to proceed to trial. Followed by arraignment, which is the plea of guilty or not guilty, pretrial detention, plea bargaining, trial, and sentencing (Process of Criminal Justice). For O. J. Simpson, this process started with the investigation of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The same day the bodies were discovered, Simpson flew back from Chicago to Los Angeles. Upon his arrival, authorities took him into custody and began their questioning.
“A Modest Proposal” was written in 1729 by a satirical author by the name of Jonathan Swift. Swift studied at the University of Oxford and was also know for his popular writing in Gulliver’s Travel. The purpose for his satire “A Modest Proposal” was to enlighten the citizens of Ireland about their hardship and suffering. He informed them about their scares of food, money, and property, but provided a possible solution to their problem. To persuade the people Swift adopts a comforting and friendly tone to his audience for the people to react to his solution.
They are the impartial third-party whose responsibility is to deliver a verdict for the accused based on the evidence presented during trial. They balance the rights of society to a great extent as members of the community are involved. This links the legal system with the community and ensures that the system is operating fairly and reflecting the standards and values of society. A trial by jury also ensures the victim’s rights to a fair trial. However, they do not balance the rights of the offender as they can be biased or not under. In the News.com.au article ‘Judge or jury? Your life depends on this decision’ (14 November 2013), Ian Lloyd, QC, revealed that “juries are swayed by many different factors.” These factors include race, ethnicity, physical appearance and religious beliefs. A recent study also found that juries are influenced by where the accused sits in the courtroom. They found that a jury is most likely to give a “guilty” verdict if the accused sits behind a glass dock (ABC News, 5 November 2014). Juries also tend to be influenced by their emotions; hence preventing them from having an objective view. According to the Sydney Morning Herald article ‘Court verdicts: More found innocent if no jury involved’ (23 November 2013), 55.4 per cent of defendants in judge-alone trials were acquitted of all charges compared with 29 per cent in jury trials between 1993 and 2011. Professor Mark Findlay from the University of Sydney said that this is because “judges were less likely to be guided by their emotions.” Juries balance the rights of victims and society to a great extent. However, they are ineffective in balancing the rights of the offender as juries can be biased which violate the offender’s rights to have a fair
Now that we have discussed the pretrial occurrences, we get into the trial portion of the court process. This is the portion of the process in which both the defense and the prosecution present their cases to the jury, the judge, and the rest of the courtroom. To select a jury, the bring in potential jurors and ask them questions,
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.
It is all based on the perception of the jurors and what they believe is true. There could always be that juror or person in the jury that does not believe the person in trial is guilty. “Suppose, for instance, that a judge is aware of the fact that 1 out of 20 confessions is false. Since the cases are tried individually and are often indistinguishable from one another, 54 the judge's underlying assumption in each is that the confession is 95% true. The result is that she is likely to convict all 20 defendants.”
A jury trial is not to be confused with a bench trial as it often times is. While a bench trial takes places only in front of a Judge who is then tasked with coming to a verdict on his/her own, a jury trial is one that is “composed of members of the community present at the trial to act as the finder of fact” (McGuigan, 2014). The constitutional trial rights that are sanctioned throughout a jury trial is called a trial by jury. This is in the sixth amendment which says that everyone has the right to a fair and speedy trial by an impartial jury. The steps involved in creating a jury for the purpose of carrying out a jury trial will be expressly addressed in this paper. Furthermore, the purpose of this paper will be to discuss, in detail, the steps that are involved in a jury trial which include selection of the Jury, the trial, the Judge’s charge, deliberation, and the verdict.
The jurors all vote on what they think and the vote is 11-1 this leads to both sides explaining why their side is right then the side of the innocent presents the major pieces of evidence such as the second switch blade and the assumption that the lady that saw the boy murder his father wore glasses and saw him through low light levels
In 1729, Jonathan Swift published a pamphlet called “A Modest Proposal”. It is a satirical piece that described a radical and humorous proposal to a very serious problem. The problem Swift was attacking was the poverty and state of destitution that Ireland was in at the time. Swift wanted to bring attention to the seriousness of the problem and does so by satirically proposing to eat the babies of poor families in order to rid Ireland of poverty. Clearly, this proposal is not to be taken seriously, but merely to prompt others to work to better the state of the nation. Swift hoped to reach not only the people of Ireland who he was calling to action, but the British, who were oppressing the poor. He writes with contempt for those who are oppressing the Irish and also dissatisfaction with the people in Ireland themselves to be oppressed.
If you plead guilty to a criminal offence it means you accept that you committed the offense and will accept the facts as alleged by the police or other prosecuting body. If you plead not guilty it means that you deny committing the offense. This may mean that you are not sure if you have committed the offense and you wish the court to hear evidence to decide whether you are guilty or not. After you plead guilty or not guilty you have to decide whether you want a bench trial or a jury trial. A bench trial takes place in front of a Judge only, there is no jury involved. The Judge is both the finder of fact and ruler on matters of law and procedure. This means that the Judge decides the verdict. A Jury trial is a legal proceeding in which a Jury either makes a decision or makes findings of fact, which then direct the actions of a