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An essay on the common law system in England
History and development of common law and equity
An essay on the common law system in England
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A legal system is a system used for interpreting and enforcing the laws. The most original or commonly know legal system that has shaped much of what exists today is know as the Common Law. There are three major legal systems of legal procedure; each having their own set of rules called criminal procedure guidelines. These three systems are the adversarial, inquisitorial, and popular (mixed) systems of criminal procedure (Dammer & Albanese, 2011). The adversarial system is a legal system used in the Common Law countries, such as England and the United States, where two advocates represent their parties’ positions before an impartial person or group of people, usually a jury or judge, who attempt to determine the truth of the case. For many centuries, defendants were forbidden to have legal representation and lawyers rarely appeared for prosecution duty; as trials were specifically meant to be an event where the defendant answers to the charges in person (Langbein, 2003). Inspired by the Enlightenment period, the adversarial system was developed due to a string of treason trials in England, which led to a change in the way the accused could defend themselves (Dammer & Albanese, 2011). The transformation from the prior lawyer-free system to the now, lawyer-dominated, happened within a century, from the 1690’s to the 1780’s (Langbein, 2003). In order to investigate and determine the guilt or innocence of the accused an adversarial approach is used. The adversarial system seeks the truth by pitting the prosecution and the defense against each other with the hopes that competition will reveal it. It is because of the competition this is often compared to a game or contest in which both side are trying to win. Primary responsibility... ... middle of paper ... ...an_conquest_of_England.html> Douglas D. Anderson. (2003). “English Puritanism and the Puritan Revolution.” The Hymns and Carols of Christmas. Retrieved from (n.d.). Trial System. Retrieved from Corrado, M. (2010). “The Future of Adversarial Systems: An introduction to the papers from the first conference”. North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation, 35(2), 285-296. Dammer, H.R., & Albanese, J.S., (2011). Comparative Criminal Justice System. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Langbein, J.H., (2003). The Origins of Adversary Criminal Trial. New York, NY: Oxford University Press Inc. Walpin, G. (2003). “America’s Adversarial and Jury Systems: More likely to do justice”. Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, 26(1), 175-186
Wright, J. (2012). Introduction to criminal justice. (p. 9.1). San Diego: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/books/AUCRJ201.12.1/sections/sec9.1
Seigal, L. J., & Worrall, J. L. (2012). Introduction to criminal justice (13th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
...e prosecutor interrogates the witnesses and tries to convince the jury that beyond any doubt Kenneth Waters committed the crime. During the deposition of one of the witnesses, the judge applied the rule of evidence by asking the prosecutor to rephrase a question. The text says that “The law of evidence determines what questions a lawyer may ask and how the questions are to be phrased, what answers a witness may give, and what documents may be introduced”(64). In this scene we see an example of adversary system. Both lawyers take the stand one after the other to question the witnesses. Finally, the jury announces the verdict recognizing Kenneth Waters guilty of first degree murder and armed robbery.
Kassin, Saul, and Lawrence Wrightsman (Eds.). The Psychology of Evidence and Trial Procedure. Chapter 3. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1985. Print.
Hickey, T. J. (2010). Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Crime and Criminology, 9th Edition. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
The New York Times bestseller book titled Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case examines the O.J. Simpson criminal trial of the mid-1990s. The author, Alan M. Dershowitz, relates the Simpson case to the broad functions and perspectives of the American criminal justice system as a whole. A Harvard law school teacher at the time and one of the most renowned legal minds in the country, Dershowitz served as one of O.J. Simpson’s twelve defense lawyers during the trial. Dershowitz utilizes the Simpson case to illustrate how today’s criminal justice system operates and relates it to the misperceptions of the public. Many outside spectators of the case firmly believed that Simpson committed the crimes for which he was charged for. Therefore, much of the public was simply dumbfounded when Simpson was acquitted. Dershowitz attempts to explain why the jury acquitted Simpson by examining the entire American criminal justice system as a whole.
Griffiths, C. T. (2007). Canadian Criminal Justice: A Primer (3rd Edition ed.). Toronto: Thomson Nelson.
Schmalleger, Frank, Criminal Justice A Brief Introduction, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Pearson Education Inc. , 2010, Page 387
Stevenson, D 2012, The function of uncertainty within jury systems, George Mason Law Review, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 513-548, viewed 6 May 2014, .
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.
The American Court System is an important part of American history and one of the many assets that makes America stand out from other countries. It thrives for justice through its structured and organized court systems. The structures and organizations are widely influenced by both the State and U.S Constitution. The courts have important characters that used their knowledge and roles to aim for equality and justice. These court systems have been influenced since the beginning of the United State of America. Today, these systems and law continue to change and adapt in order to keep and protect the peoples’ rights.
Schmalleger, F. (2009), Prentice Hall, Publication. Criminal Justice Today: An introductory Text for the 21st century
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 27, 343-360. http://ccj.sagepub.com.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/content/27/3/342
However, in the inquisitional system, judges play a major role in the investigation” (Perkins, 2015, pg. 3, 6). Even though a very small percentage of cases make it to an actual jury trial in the United States, the jury plays a key role in the adversarial system (Bohm, Haley, 2014). The judge of an adversarial system’s role is to be somewhat of a referee of the trial. Furthermore, the decisions made by the juries are more secretive than that of an inquisitional system. After all the evidence, witness statements, defendant statements, has been presented, the jury will go behind closed door to deliberate. The inquisitional system is right the opposite because there are not any juries. In addition, when the judge makes his or her decision, it is written to explain why they came to that decision. It is apparent that the adversarial system is superior when it comes to the role of
For Marc and Mia, multitude of factors which include legal, sociological, and economic, contributes to a party's decision to settle out of court. It is believed that the shortcomings in the adversarial system in resolving disputes especially those involving parties from different countries fuelled the emergence of ADR. The proponents of this supposition hold that domestic laws relating to jurisdiction of courts in most countries were not tailored to accommodate eventuali...