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Punishment and sentencing in the United States
Sentencing in the united states essay
Sentencing in the united states essay
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Kansas v. Hendricks was somewhat of a landmark case when it relates to individuals receiving treatment for a disorder after they have severed their respected prison sentence. Leroy Hendricks was nearing the end of his ten year prison sentence. He was convicted of violating or taking “indecent liberties” with two thirteen year old boys. Hendricks had an extensive history when it came to molesting children. He testified in court that he was diagnosed by a physician for suffering from pedophilia. He told the physician that he still has sexual desires for children and will not be able to control them once he is “stressed out”. It was then determined by a jury that Hendricks should be labeled as a violent sexual predator. Kansas authorities wanted …show more content…
States have agreed to confine individuals and detain them when they have proven to pose a threat to public safety. If they have shown to be unable to control their behavior, with proof of mental illness. This has be sufficient for criteria for commitment. It was also found that the States have not required no specific term when identifying terms of medical nature that require civil commitments. The Act also did not violate Hendrick’s rights against double jeopardy or ex post facto laws. He believed that he was being newly punished for his past actions in which he has already been convicted. Hendrick failed to show proof that the Act was an extension of sentence and punitive. Initially the Act is placed in placed within Kansas probate code instead of criminal. It is defined as a civil commitment established for the safety of the public. The Act does not prove to be retributive or deterrence in nature, which are the two necessary factors when determining a punishment. That would make it impossible to show double jeopardy. The Act being civil would exclude ex post facto and also because new behavior was not being criminally addressed. Court have found civil commitments to be constitutional on face. Hendricks will have to prove that the Act is contiunied punishment and what it intended to be which civil
The evidence presented to myself and the other juror’s proves that Tyrone Washburn is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the murder of his wife, Elena Washburn. On March 12, 1979 Elena Washburn was strangled in the living room of her family’s home. Her body was then dragged to the garage, leaving a trail of blood from the living room to the place it was found. Her husband, Tyrone Washburn, found her in the family’s garage on March 13, 1979 at 1:45 A.M. When officer Dale Chambers arrived at the scene he found her lying face down in a pool of blood. The solid evidence in this case proves only one person, Tyrone Washburn, is guilty of murder.
The Case of Arizona v. Hicks took place in 1986; the case was decided in 1987. It began on April 18th 1984, with a bullet that was shot through the floor in Hick’s apartment; it had injured a man in the room below him. An investigation took place. Officers were called to the scene. They entered Mr. Hicks’ apartment and discovered three weapons and a black stocking mask.
Adair v. U.S. and Coppage v. Kansas became two defining cases in the Lochner era, a period defined after the Supreme Court’s decision in Lochner v New York, where the court adopted a broad understanding of the due process clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment. In these cases the court used the substantive due process principle to determine whether a state statute or state’s policing power violated an individual’s freedom of contract. To gain a better understanding of the court’s reasoning it is essential to understand what they disregarded and how the rulings relate to the rulings in Plessy v. Ferguson, Lochner v. New York and Muller v. Oregon.
Does the first amendment overrule the Texas law that forbids the desecration of a venerated object under these circumstances?
Established in 1968, the medical school at the University of California implemented a special admissions program to increase the representation of minorities in each entering class. There was one underlying problem with their special admissions program that was not addressed until 1973 when Allan Bakke submitted his application to the University of California.
The case, Kansas v. Cheever, came about after Scott D. Cheever murdered Sheriff Matthew Samuels on January 19th, 2005. Samuels was with two of his deputies at the Cooper home in a rural part of Greenwood County, Kansas to execute a warrant for Scott Cheever’s arrest when Cheever shot and killed him. After Cheever was arrested, he was charged with capital murder and attempted capital murder and was also charged with various other drug charges and criminal possession of firearms. Cheever was first on trial in federal court because it was a capital case and Kansas had just ruled Capital punishment unconstitutional and was under then under review. Cheever used a voluntary intoxication defense claiming he was so high on methamphetamines he could not have premeditated the murder. In return the court ordered a mental...
Allows a federal judge to detain an arrestee pending trial if a defendant constitutes a danger to other persons or to the community
To this day, Americans have many rights and privileges. Rights stated in the United States constitution may be simple and to the point, but the rights Americans have may cause debate to whether or not something that happens in society, is completely reasonable. The Texas v. Johnson case created much debate due to a burning of the American Flag. One may say the burning of the flag was tolerable because of the rights citizens of the United States have, another may say it was not acceptable due to what the American flag symbolizes for America. (Brennan and Stevens 1). Johnson was outside of his First Amendment rights, and the burning of the American flag was unjust due to what the flag means to America.
In the case Lawrence v. Texas (539 U.S. 558, 2003) which was the United States Supreme Court case the criminal prohibition of the homosexual pederasty was invalidated in Texas. The same issue has been already addressed in 1989 in the case Bowers v. Hardwick, however, the constitutional protection of sexual privacy was not found at that time. Lawrence overruled Bowers and held that sexual conduct was the right protected by the due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The effects of the ruling were quite widespread and led to invalidation of the similar laws throughout the United States that tried to criminalize the homosexual activity of adults which were acting in privacy. The case attracted much of the public attention and quite a large number of briefs were filed in the cases.
A court case that made it to the Supreme Court was the case of Kevin Nigel Stanford, who was convicted in 1981 of a murder committed in Kentucky when he was 17 years and 4 months old. Stanford and an accomplice repeatedly raped and sodomized a 20-year-old woman during the robbery of a gas station where she worked. The men took her to a wooded area, and Stanford shot her straight in the face, then in the back of the head, to prevent her from testifying against him. Stanford's case first came to the Supreme Court in 1989. In the decision Stanford vs. Kentucky, a narrow Supreme Court majority ruled the execution of death row inmates who killed before they were 18 was not then cruel and unusual punishment, following the 8th amendment of the Constitution.
Juvenile court is a special court that deals with under age defendants that are charged with crimes, who are neglected, or out of their parent’s control. The average age of the Defendants are younger than 18, but juvenile court doesn’t have jurisdiction in cases in which a minor is charged as an adult. The procedure of juvenile court is to involve parents or social workers and probation officers in order to achieve positive results and prevent minors from future crimes. However, serious crimes and repeated offenses can result in the juvenile offender being sentenced to a prison, with a transfer to a state prison when they reach adulthood. According to the film “Prison States”, Christel Tribble’s was a 15-year-old from Kentucky who was diagnosed
3. Report of the Interagency Council on Sex Offender Treatment to the Senate Interim Committee on Health and Human Services and the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice, 1993
The Tennessee v. Garner case impacted law enforcement agencies today by utilizing the Fourth Amendment right of not using deadly force to prevent a suspect from fleeing unless the officer is in imminent danger of their life. Consequently, before this was set into place, an officer had the right to use deadly force on a fleeing suspect by all means.” The first time the Court dealt with the use of force was in Tennessee v. Garner, in Garner, a police officer used deadly force despite being "reasonably sure" that the suspect was an unarmed teenager "of slight build" who was running away from him” (Gross,2016). Whereas, with Graham v. Conner case was surrounded around excessive force which also has an impact on law enforcement agencies in today’s society as well. “All claims that law enforcement officers have used excessive force deadly or not in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other “seizure” of s free citizen should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment and its “reasonableness” standard” (Doerner,2016).
Separate but equal, judicial review, and the Miranda Rights are decisions made by the Supreme Court that have impacted the United States in history altering ways. Another notable decision was made in the Tinker v. Des Moines Case. Ultimately the Supreme Court decided that the students in the case should have their rights protected and that the school acted unconstitutionally. Justice Fortas delivered a compelling majority opinion. In the case of Tinker v Des Moines, the Supreme Court’s majority opinion was strongly supported with great reasoning but had weaknesses that could present future problems.
I, Israel Tefera a jury number one in the case state of Texas v. James Broadnax, herby give the final verdict on the aforementioned case before the jury. After deliberating on the case, we the jury have given to this court our opinion on the case. If I may, before reading the verdict go through my thought process, I would appreciate it your honor.