Prosecutors Essay

Prosecutors are important in the workings of the American judicial system. They play a half of the two part adversarial system that we use during trials. The prosecutors are attorneys that represent the interest of the government. This means that when they prosecute a case they are not representing the victim, but all of the people in the state or country because such crimes are considered to be against the general populace.

Prosecutors have a long and varied history. After 1790, the nation began to grow and with it came the beginning of the office of the prosecutor. A few factors went into making the office what it has become today. When the government made the process public versus private, that meant that trials and such had to be carried out in a way that the general public could see if they wanted to. Another factor was decentralization. This led to offices in different localities as opposed to one centralized office. The last factor was that the public wanted to elect their prosecutors as opposed to having them appointed. It meant that they were able to have a bit more control over the proceedings.

Prosecutorial power surged in those early years until it was generally accepted that they would wield most if not all of the power over enforcing the law. When the 1920s came around people were of the opinion that despite the fact that all of the power was in the hands of the prosecutors, the general public was okay with that. They did a valuable job and people could appreciate and understand that. The ruling of cases like Miranda v. Arizona, Argersinger v. Hamlin, and Gideon v. Wainwright brought around the need for prosecutors in more stages of the criminal justice process which increased the amount of work they had to do. ...

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...to offer degrees in the field of law. The first university to grant a degree in law was William and Mary College. The first law school was Harvard University. Many practitioners would assemble their apprentices and create smaller schools of law.

There are different kinds of attorneys that work at different levels within the government structure. There are four levels: federal, state, county, and city. Prosecutors at the federal level include the attorney general, US attorneys, and assistant US attorneys. The Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer in the nation. The current Attorney General is Eric Holder. US attorneys are charged with working under the Attorney General and overseeing the federal offices in the 94 federal districts. They work with assistant US attorneys to manage the case load and work on litigation concerning the federal government.