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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 adversary system is able to reflect the moral and ethical standards of society through balancing the rights of all parties involved. The adversary system is a system of law where two opposing sides present their case to an impartial …show more content…
A jury is a panel of citizens, selected randomly from the electoral role, whose job it is to determine guilt or innocence based on the evidence presented. The Jury Act 1977 (NSW) stipulates the purpose of juries and some of the legal aspects, such as verdicts and the right of the defence and prosecution to challenge jurors. The jury system is able to reflect the moral and ethical standards of society as members of the community ultimately decide whether the person is guilty or innocent. The creation of the Jury Amendment Act 2006 (NSW) enabled the criminal trial process to better represent the standards of society as it allowed majority verdicts of 11-1 or 10-2, which also allowed the courts to be more resource efficient. Majority verdicts still ensure that a just outcome is reached as they are only used if there is a hung jury and there has been considerable deliberation. However, the role of the media is often criticized in relation to ensuring that the jurors remain unbiased as highlighted in the media article “Independent Juries” (SMH, 2001), and the wide reporting of R v Gittany 2013 supports the arguments raised in the media article. Hence, the jury system is moderately effective in reflecting the moral and ethical standards of society, as it resource efficient and achieves just outcomes, but the influence of the media reduces the effectiveness. In closing, the criminal trial process has been able to reflect the morals and ethics of society to a great extent, despite the few limitations, which hinder its effectiveness. The moral and ethical standards have been effectively been reflected to a great extent in the areas of the adversary system, the system of appeals, legal aid and the jury
Criminal law attempts to balance the rights of individuals to freedom from interference with person or property, and society’s need for order. Procedural matters, the rights of citizens and powers of the state, specific offences and defences, and punishment and compensation are some of the ways society and the criminal justice system interact.
The merits of both the adversarial and inquisitorial system will be explored throughout this paper. The Australian rule of law best describes as all law should be applied equally and fairly. The five vital operations of the rule of law includes fairness, rationality, predictability, consistency, and impartially. The adversarial system adopts these operations by having a jury decide on the verdict and the judge being an impartial decision maker. In contrast, the inquisitorial system relies heavily on the judge. This can result in abusive power and bias of the judge when hearing evidence and delivering verdicts. The operations of the rule of law determine why the rule of law is best served by the adversarial system in Australia.
At trial, your life is in the palms of strangers who decide your fate to walk free or be sentenced and charged with a crime. Juries and judges are the main components of trials and differ at both the state and federal level. A respectable citizen selected for jury duty can determine whether the evidence presented was doubtfully valid enough to convict someone without full knowledge of the criminal justice system or the elements of a trial. In this paper, juries and their powers will be analyzed, relevant cases pertaining to jury nullification will be expanded and evaluated, the media’s part on juries discretion, and finally the instructions judges give or may not include for juries in the court. Introduction Juries are a vital object to the legal system and are prioritized as the most democratic element in our society, aside from voting, in our society today.
What do we know about the criminal justice system? The criminal justice system is a series of organizations that are involved in apprehending, prosecuting, defending, sentencing, and jailing those involved in crimes; along with the system, regular citizens are summoned for jury duty in order to contemplate whether the defendant is guilty or not. It appears to be a rather secure, fair, and trustworthy system; one that should work relatively well, right? Unfortunately, the criminal justice system is an ultra-costly and ultra-punitive; the system is neither protecting victims nor rehabilitating lawbreakers. For example, trial by jury; there is usually a small amount of people in the jury who actually considered that another being’s life is on the line. In trial by jury, the court is literally trusting the life of another being in the hands of twelve strangers who need to argue with each other like kids until they conclude a verdict. In the play, Twelve Angry Men, a group of men are summoned for jury duty and almost all of the men would rather conclude a verdict immediately and leave; except for one, Juror #8. He managed to detain the group by requesting for a discussion of the murder trial before voting “guilty” or “not guilty.” Not once did Juror #8 allow the others to influence him unless they had a valid explanation.
All of the following court cases were utilized by criminals to put society itself on trial. Darrow’s closing argument focused on the plight of wealthy teenagers, the reading materials introduced in the educational system, the historical progress made regarding the death penalty, and the impact that Leopold and Loeb’s murders would have on society (especially boys like them). Manson’s testimony focused on the jail system, President Nixon’s role in the Vietnam war and society’s outsiders. Bukharin’s last plea primarily focused on how the trial will look to future generations and future societies.
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
Trials by jury are adopted by most countries that use an adversarial legal system under the common law; that is when an impartial judge evaluates evidence gathered by two opposing parties independent of the juridical power as opposed to the civil law’s inquisitorial system where the court itself is involved in the investigation (Block, Parker, Vyborna & Dusek, 2000). The countries using the adversarial system, among which are the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia or USA, only use jury in high-profile criminal cases such as those involving murder, rape, manslaughter or false imprisonment (“When are juries used in criminal and civil cases?”). This makes up approximately 2% of all criminal trials (Lloyd-Bostock, as cited in Howitt, 2002) from
The book Acquittal by Richard Gabriel states, “juries are the best judges in the system. They are not elected, they don't have the high-powered microscope of appellate review or the stern, disapproving-schoolmarm precedent looking over their shoulder, and they have no interest in the outcome of the case.” For this reason, we can come to the conclusion that the use of juries in a trial is the best for all involved in the legal system. While juries, “are the best judges in the system”, lawyers, jury consultants, and jury scientists are the reasons they are viewed this way. It is their job to make sure that not only their client, but everyone has a fair and unbiased trial.Making sure that “the best judges in the system” are fair and unbiased takes a lot of planning, research, and effort. You must research the jurors, understand how they think, what their morals are, and how they would view this case. “It is a constructed reality, cobbled together by shifting memories of witnesses, attorney arguments, legal instructions, personal experiences, and beliefs of jurors.”(Gabriel
While the jury remains a vital cog in the machine that is the English legal system, the debate over its validity has attracted many academic and legal opinions. The jury has been an integral part of criminal proceedings in Britain for over 800 years. Though the concept of the jury has remained a constant, the role of the juries in criminal proceedings has altered greatly. When juries were first introduced, they were used as witnesses as opposed to the modern role of returning a verdict. The concept of using a jury is to allow ‘ordinary citizens to participate in the administration of justice’ . This is designed to promote public confidence.
The law can be referred to as social equalizer. The criminal justice system is a far-reaching and a large segment which ensures laws are followed to the letter. This makes citizens remain loyal to the state. It is the best method of punishing law breakers, and realizing the innocent people. The criminal justice system faces challenges from conviction to prosecution of criminals. The defendant is ineffectively presented. There is overcrowding, over loaded prosecutors, unfeasible caseloads with public defenders and much more. These challenges make enormous cases to be reported without convictions or arrestors. Prosecutors fail to concentrate on serious crimes. Lawmakers, attorneys and intellectuals have identified these challenges which require action, discussion and change (Weinstein, 2004). The challenges have put extreme pressure in the criminal justice system, causing misuse of resources, manpower and time. These situations cause ethical dilemmas, which require critical
Regardless of these drawbacks, trial by jury is still a fair and effective way to promote and protect individual liberties. Juries are an important check on authority, for without their symbolic position within the judicial system, there would be no power to counteract that of authoritative figures, such as judges and the government at large. The jurors share common societal values. It allows for individuals to participate in the legal system. Trial by jury is democratic, in the sense that it is representative of the
“ ….Judgments, right or wrong. This concern with concepts such as finality, jurisdiction, and the balance of powers may sound technical, lawyerly, and highly abstract. But so is the criminal justice system….Law must provide simple answers: innocence or guilt, freedom or imprisonment, life or death.” (Baude, 21).
For a long time, the law enforcement agents and the judicial systems have been using the crime control and the due process models in an effort to establish and maintain justice in the society. As much as these two models operate hand in hand, they both have similarities as well as several differences in how they operate in the judicial system. They are very effective in the judicial system because they both work towards providing justice, creating a great impact in the judicial system in the society (Edkins & Kansas, 2007). However, they have variations in their approach in bringing justice to the people in the society. The reasons why at some point these two models seem to be similar is because they coil around the constitution, and the constitutional settings define their operational strategies to give comparable explanations of finding justice among the people in the society (Zalman, 2008).
When looking at the criminal justice system, the belief is that in order for justice to occur an individual must pay for the crime they committed. This mindset has created a shift in the values related to the importance of a conviction, whether it is ethical or not. As society begins to unfold, situations transform from a black or white state to grey where ethical judgements are needed to decipher the multitude of morals, views, and opinions encompassed within. Ambiguous social questions arise as to the right or wrong action to take, this is referred to as ethical issues (Pollock, 2015). Ethical issues are difficult to fully comprehended and a prime example is if a conviction means justice for prosecutors. Having a false or simplistic idea
In chapter two, the main purpose is described within the title, "The Importance of Ethics in Criminal Justice." Ethics are the moral principles that controls person's behavior or the conducting of an activity. While moral is the ability to know right and wrong behavior and/or good or bad. It is essential when dealing with criminals' rights that decisions must be made using morals and ethics. Chapter two focuses on how to know if the criminal justice personnel are acting ethically in mind of the individual's rights. The chapter explores the ethical issues that have arisen in the criminal justice system along with looking at normal behavior in these situations by individuals. The authors attempt to answer how we theorize when these occurrences