Within the criminal justice system there are many stages that involves arrest, pretrial, trial, and appeals. In each of these stages there is a process in each of stages before a person is actually convicted of a crime. In each stage there are a set of constitutional rights that defendant have, that each party involved in the criminal justice must uphold, in order to ensure that the defendant is treated fairly. Without the proper use of the criminal justice system it is hard to implementing justice, amt there is no way justice could be served. The criminal justice helps with the changing values of the system. In this paper I will be discussing the stages of arrest, pretrial, trial, and appeals and the steps that need to be taken in order …show more content…
It’s important that each stage of the criminal justice system is take seriously and all parties involved ensure that each procedure involved in the arrest process, pretrial, trial, and appeal are followed accordingly to ensure justice is …show more content…
“An arrest is considered a seizure of a person. It involves a legal authority taking a person into custody.” (Wright, 2013, Section 1.5). The law enforcement officer must inform the person on why they are being arrested and their rights. Once the person is arrested their Miranda Rights are read to ensure that the offender doesn’t self incriminate themselves, which is protected under the Fifth Amendment, but could only be done once the offender in being interrogated. “The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution states that "No person. . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” (Ciarelli, 2003, Para. 5). When the offender is stopped by an law enforcement officer, the offender can patted down from their outer clothing to ensure there is no weapons. Once the suspect is arrested, the law enforcement officer can do a thorough search of the suspect and their surroundings and or vehicle if there is one for evidence. Once he or she is arrested they are then taken down to the police station where they are asked a series of questions and their property is taken for inventory and then booked in jail. Once the offender is being booked, they are asked questions such as their name, birthday, and address, fingerprinted, and
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.
Miranda rights are the entitlements every suspect has. An officer of the law is required to make these rights apparent to the suspect. These are the rights that you hear on every criminal investigation and policing show in the country, “You have the right to remain silent, anything you say may be used against you, you have the right to consult an attorney, if you can no t afford an attorney one will be appointed for you.” After the suspect agrees that he or she understands his/her rights, the arrest and subsequent questioning and investigation may continue. These are liberties that were afforded to suspected criminals in the Miranda Vs Arizona. However, with every rule there also exceptions like: Maryland v. Shatzer, Florida v. Powell, and Berghuis v. Thompkins.
The decision requires law enforcement officers to follow a code of conduct when arresting suspects. After an arrest is made, before they may begin questioning they must first advise the suspect of their rights, and make sure that the suspect understands them. These rights are known as the Miranda Warnings and include:
This paper will be focusing on the courts as the specific sub-system in the criminal justice system. As said in the book the court system is responsible for charging criminal suspects, carrying out trials, and sentencing a person convicted of a crime. The fear of crime influences criminal justice policies in the court system. One way it does this is with the courts sentencing. Courts are able to give out severe punishments as a method of deterrence. This specific type of deterrence would be general deterrence. The book says that general deterrence theory should work if the punishment is clear, severe, and done swiftly. According to this theory, crime rate should drop because people will fear the punishment. The other way fear of crime influences
...ained in their questioning. Officers commonly have small cards with the Miranda warnings on them so they don’t forget or skip over a part of ones right, if this does occur evidence still cannot be properly obtained because the person was not fully warned of all their rights. Currently, the only unwarned questioning that can occur is if the officer believes the public is in some type of danger. For example, if police come across a man standing in a convenience store that fits the description of recent thefts in a nearby neighborhood and the man runs once police confront him and is later caught and searched, when upon the search they realize he has an empty shoulder holster. In this scenario the public is in potential danger, the police can ask him where the gun is hidden without reading the man his rights and it would not be violating his Fifth Amendment rights.
The basis of criminal justice in the United States is one founded on both the rights of the individual and the democratic order of the people. Evinced through the myriad forms whereby liberty and equity marry into the mores of society to form the ethos of a people. However, these two systems of justice are rife with conflicts too. With the challenges of determining prevailing worth in public order and individual rights coming down to the best service of justice for society. Bearing a perpetual eye to their manifestations by the truth of how "the trade-off between freedom and security, so often proposed so seductively, very often leads to the loss of both" (Hitchens, 2003, para. 5).
The entire criminal justice system can be very frightening and even intimidating if someone fails to understand the meaning of terms used, procedures, laws, and rules (Cook, 2009). Criminal law is among the terms that have been defined differently by various sources. It is mainly concerned with a system of legal rules defining actions that are classified as crimes and the manner of which the government prosecutes people who commit crimes (Snyman, 2014). According to the chapter, some sources use it in a way that is very general that describes it as the entire spectrum of laws that deal with the criminal justice system while others use shorthand ways which terms it as substantive criminal law, which is very true.
U.S. Department of Justice. 2002. “What is the Sequence of Events in the Criminal Justice System?”
What does this mean to you? Well if you are ever arrested for being suspected of a crime, the police are legally obligated to advise you of your Miranda rights. If they do not do this and they start to ask you questions, and interrogate you, then anything you say cannot be used against you in court, and you could have the charges dropped. The police are not supposed to question you at all unless you have been read your Miranda rights and you then waive those rights. You can waive your rights either verbally tell the officer you waive your rights, or by signing a rights waiver form.
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.
In 1968, Herbert Packer was a Stanford University law professor who constructed two models of criminal process, due process and crime control. The due process model was Packer’s view that criminal defendants should be presumed innocent, courts must protect suspects’ rights, and there must be come limits placed on police powers. The crime control model is a model that emphasizes law and order and argues that every effort must be made to suppress crime, and to try, convict, and incarcerate offenders. Packer’s crime control model suggested that most cases ended in guilty please or withdrawals. In contrast, his due process model suggested that cases that go to trail and are appealed were the most influential. The due process and crime control model differentiate in
Neubauer, D. W., & Fradella, H. F. (2011). America’s courts and the criminal justice system (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
The United States criminal justice system is an ever-changing system that is based on the opinions and ideas of the public. Many of the policies today were established in direct response to polarizing events and generational shifts in ideology. In order to maintain public safety and punish those who break these laws, law enforcement officers arrest offenders and a judge or a group of the law offender’s peers judge their innocence. If found guilty, these individuals are sentenced for a predetermined amount of time in prison and are eventually, evaluated for early release through probation. While on probation, the individual is reintegrated into their community, with restrict limitations that are established for safety. In theory, this system
In this paper, I propose to talk about how all the three parts of the criminal justice system works and also delve a little bit on the issue of racism in context of the criminal justice system as a lot of people believe that the system most of the times acts keeping the individual’s race in mind.
The definition of justice and the means by which it must be distributed differ depending on an individual’s background, culture, and own personal morals. As a country of many individualistic citizens, the United States has always tried its best to protect, but not coddle, its people in this area. Therefore, the criminal justice history of the United States is quite extensive and diverse; with each introduction of a new era, more modern technologies and ideals are incorporated into government, all with American citizens’ best interests in mind.