An Indictable Offence and How it is Brought to Trial An indictable offence is an offence that may be tried on indictment, i.e.- by a jury in the Crown Court. Most serious offences i.e. murder and rape are indictable offences. A judge and jury in the Crown Court try indictable offences, and the magistrates sit only as examining justices to decide whether the prosecution has sufficient evidence to justify a trial. In a Practice Direction issued in May 1995, Lord Taylor CJ defined the four classes of offence triable on indictment as follows: Ø Class 1: Offences carrying the death penalty, misprision of treason, treason felony, murder, genocide, offences under s.1 of the Official Secrets Act 1911, and incitement, attempt or conspiracy to commit any of these. Ø Class 2: Manslaughter, infanticide, child destruction, abortion, rape, sexual intercourse or incest with a girl under 13, sedition, offences against s.1 of the Geneva Conventions Act 1957, mutiny, piracy, and incitement, attempt or conspiracy to commit any of these. Ø Class 3: All offences triable only on indictment except as listed in Class 1, 2 or 4. Ø Class 4: Wounding or causing grievous bodily harm with intent, robbery or assault with intent to rob, incitement or attempt to commit any of these, common law conspiracy, or conspiracy to commit any offence in Class 3 or 4, and all offences triable either way. Class 1 offences are normally tried by a High Court judge, Class 2 offences by a High Court judge or Circuit judge, Class 3 offences by a High Court judge, Circuit judge or Recorder, and Class 4 offences by a Circuit judge, Recorder or Assistant Recorder, t... ... middle of paper ... ...Mediator is a facilitator rather than a participant in the debate; the ultimate decision (which may be enforceable as an ordinary contract once it is reached) is the responsibility of the parties themselves. Conciliation is similar to mediation the main difference being that a conciliator takes a more pro-active role than a mediator. Alternative dispute resolution is preferable to ordinary court proceedings, as: Ø If the ordinary courts were used then there would be an increase in expense for everyone involved Ø Alternative dispute resolution is a lot quicker than the process of ordinary court proceedings Ø Cases can be decided on their individual merit as tribunals especially, are not bound by strict rules of precedent and of evidence as Courts are Ø Expertise can be used in particular problems
R N Howie and P A Johnson, Annotated Criminal Legislation NSW, 2011-2102, (Lexis Nexis Butterworths 2012) 17769-1774
One of the main differences between criminal cases and civil cases is that they are held in different courts, this is because there is a significant distinction between a civil wrong and a criminal wrong. Crimes are considered to be a type of wrongdoing, however civil wrongs tend to have only an impact on the parties involved in the case. For example: a breach of contract. Where criminal wrongs tend to have. impact on society itself.
“ Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime.” (Wikipedia, 2014) This law encompasses several different aspects of our government and the ways used to regulate them. Maintaining the peace and order of the public is one aspect. Law enforcement officers also try to keep good conduct of the public. Anyone who places the safety of the public in jeopardy, is in violation of this law. Punishment is used in a variety of ways to discipline any person who breaks these laws. There are four main sources used in today’s criminal law:
Arguably, there are many reasons for punishment, including: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, restoration, and rehabilitation. The main aim of criminal law is to punish anybody who does wrong to the society; however, it is clear that there are different goals and forms of punishment as listen above. Notably, these differences exist because of the severity of the crime and its punishment. A murderer can be sentenced to die but a shoplifter cannot face the same sentence. The first type of punishment, retribution, punishes the crime doer because the system believes that it is right and fair. Therefore, it looks back at the crime and matches it with the best possible punishment (Schmalleger, 2013). The second type, incapacitation, is forward
The use of evidence and witnesses is a mechanism in which the law attempts to balance the rights of victims and offenders in the criminal trial process. Evidence used in court are bound by the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW) and have to be lawfully obtained by the police. The use of evidence and witnesses balance the victims’ rights to a great extent. However, it is ineffective in balancing the rights of offenders. The law has been progressive in protecting the rights of victims in the use and collection of evidence and witness statements. The Criminal Procedure Amendment (Domestic Violence Complainants) Bill 2014, which amends the Criminal Procedure Act 1986, passed the NSW Legislative Council on 18 November 2014. The amendment enables victims of
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.
Criminal Law declares what conduct is illegal and proscribes a penalty. Although, we rely on our court system to administer justice, sometimes the innocent are convicted (Risinger). Most people would not be able to imagine a person who is convicted of a crime as innocent, sometimes that is the case. Imagine what a variance that is: an innocent criminal. In an article by Radley Balko he asks the question, “How many more are innocent?” In his article, he questions America’s 250th DNA exoneration and states that it raises questions about how often we send the wrong person to prison. The other issue that follows is the means of appealing the court’s decision and who they can turn to for help.
In this essay I am going to discuss the magistrates and the crown court, and their function within the court hierarchy. The crown court is seen to deal with more serious offences referred to as indictable offences, which carry a higher sentence. Whereas the magistrates court deals with summary offences, carrying a lesser sentence than other courts in its division. Both courts are part of the criminal justice system, and deal with disputes between individuals and the state.
Cases such as buggery, stealing hawks, highway robbery and letting out of ponds and treason can result in death sentences. Those who denied that Elizabeth was the head of the Church in England were punished by torture and then
In Criminal cases, the general principle is that when it comes to proving the guilt of an accused person, the burden of proving this rests with the prosecution . In the case of Woolmington v DPP , it was stated in the judgment of Lord Sankey that; “Throughout the web of the English Criminal law one golden thread is always to be seen, that is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner’s guilt subject to….. the defence of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception”. From the Judgment of Lord Sankey, the following circumstances where the accused bears the legal burden of proof in criminal cases were established; where the accused pleads the defence of insanity, where a statute or Act of Parliament expressly imposes the legal burden of proof on the defence, and where a statute or Act of Parliament impliedly imposes the legal burden of proof on the defence. An accused person will also bear the legal burden of proof of the statutory defence of diminished responsibility which is covered by section 2(2) Homicide Act 1957. In the cases of Lambert Ali and Jordan , the Court of Appeal held that imposing the legal burden of proof of proving diminished responsibility on the defence does not infringe Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
These are, either-way offences that are disposed to the magistrate’s courts. Court cases with an estimated sentencing of over 2 years will be sent to the Crown, also cases where the defendant had been found guilty in Magistrates or for a full trial with a jury. Each case will be assisted by a legal advisor, who will give advice to the Magistrates in which direction they should possible follow, allowing the Magistrates to always follow the correct procedures. 3 magistrates will commonly judge each case, again assisted by a magistrate who is trained to act as a chairperson. Cases such as: rape, robbery and murder will not be trailed in Magistrates due to the seriousness of the case, these kinds of cases will always be trailed within a Crown court.
A suspect can be convicted of many different crimes, but the crimes that are the most interesting are called inchoate offenses. An inchoate offense is a type of crime done by taking a illegal step to the commission of another crime. The inchoate offenses are attempt, solicitation, and conspiracy ("Inchoate offense | Wex Legal Dictionary / Encyclopedia | LII / Legal Information Institute", n.d.). Solicitation is one of bottom inchoate offenses, meaning that it does not take much for a suspect to be found guilty of solicitation. Prosecutors must be able to prove two things to be effective in convicting a suspect of solicitation ("Criminal Solicitation Law & Legal Definition", n.d.). The first thing a prosecutor must prove is that a person commands another person to commit a crime. The second thing a prosecutor must prove is that the person who is commanded to commit the crime will actual commit the crime so there will need to be a specific intent ("Criminal Solicitation Law & Legal Definition", n.d.). When being charged with solicitation the other person can be charged with conspiracy. “Conspiracy is a more serious charge than solicitation as well, so if the other person does agree, the individual soliciting the crime will likely be charged with conspiracy rather than solicitation” ("Criminal Solicitation Law & Legal Definition", n.d.).
Although functions of mediators and arbitrators have several characteristics in common, there are significant instrumental differences that make them distinct from one another. Firstly, whereas the arbitration process is similar to litigation in its adversarial nature, in which parties have the objective to win the dispute, the fundamental goal of mediation is to bring the disputants to settlement through compromise and cooperation without finding a guilty party. In arbitration, parties compete against each other in “win-lose” situation. During mediation, parties work on mutually acceptable conditions with the assistance of a facilitator. In this process, mediators do not have power to make decisions, they work to reconcile the competing needs and interests of involved parties. The mediator’s tasks are to assist disputants to identify, understand, and articulate their needs and interests to each other (Christopher W. Moore,
Offences that are asked to be taken into consideration by a court is also classified as a sanction detection. If a person convicted for an offence admits the crime and asks for similar cases to be taken into consideration by the court where there are information that validates the offender to that crime. If a detection is classified as a sanction detection the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) may not take forward proceedings or the offender may not be found guilty or given a lighter sentence (Taylor and Elkin, 2013) When there is sufficient evidence to charge a person for an offence and no further action has been taken against the offender but has been counted as cleared up, non-sanction detection is raised. From April 2007, there are now only two ways non-sanction detection can be claimed, if the offender dies before proceedings could be completed and if the CPS rule not to prosecute (Taylor and Elkin,
Mediation is a way to solve a dispute without having to resort to court procedure which sometimes could turned out to be rigid, formal and time consuming especially when it needed a lot of paperwork and the possibility of adjournment which could consume years. Besides that, unlike in court, mediator as a third impartial party did not acted as a judge who decides on the resolution however, the mediator will help the parties to explore the needs and issue which before preventing them from achieving a mutual resolution and settlement. The mediation process gave the authority towards the parties to agree with each other and open up the chance for the parties to meet with a resolution at the end of the mediation session.