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Trends in managing police discretion
Police Discretion
Police Discretion
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One of the differences that I noticed in circuit court was the fact that they held probation violation cases. During many observations in district court, I never once noticed a probation violation hearing compared to circuit court. A similarity that I noticed in both courthouses is the fact that the judge has an elevated bench and sits higher than anyone else in the courtroom. I also noticed that circuit court held more cases at a more frequent pace than the district court. The circuit courthouse had four courtrooms compared to the district courthouse that had one. The other observation that I noticed between the two courthouses was that both conducted trials in the same fashion. The first concept that I want to address from my observations …show more content…
Without roles and hierarchy, there would be no way to prosecute the guilty and there would be no courts in the United States. Now I wish to talk about Discretion. Discretion is a huge part of the legal system used by almost all of its agents. Discretion refers to the decision making freedom legal officials have. It is important to remember that discretion can occur between more than one official. Discretion can take all shapes and sizes in the court room whether it being the judge striking an objection, or a judge giving a lighter sentence to a women that has the same charges as a man. Discretion also has no limits as to the role of the agent using it. Prosecutors have been found to use discretion in negotiating plea bargains based solely on the defendant’s appearance and demeanor instead of the details of the crime. I observed a lot of discretion in the courtroom when attorneys were questioning witnesses. Every time an attorney would stand up and state that they objected to the question the other attorney asked the witness the judge would almost always say “I’ll” allow it. The mere fact that the judge is saying that they will allow it means that a different judge may of answered that objection differently. The …show more content…
The prosecutor corrected the judge and told him that he was in the judge’s courtroom a year prior. The judge looked puzzled until the prosecutor worked him through their previous case. Even though this is a small mistake by the judge, it represents how the cases blend in the machine like mentality. The other conclusion that I want to make from observing courts is that they work slowly. For all of my observations I arrived at the courthouse at nine in the morning, and every time the trial started late. Once the trials began, the first witness would usually be called and between each witness, there would be a recess of anywhere between fifteen to thirty
No matter which city you go to, the courthouses are always located in a location where it is hard for people to transport there. Courthouses are placed in places where there are not many residential places and where it is often hard for people to have access to get there. For example, the Ottawa courthouse is located downtown. If you live in the west side of Ottawa and you are traveling to the courthouse by bus, the trip may take about an hour or two to arrive at the location because of the distance. In conclusion, courts are easier to have access to when they are located in smaller cities rather than larger
The first model to the judicial decision making is the attitudinal model. This model of judicial decision making speculates that a judge’s behavior can be predicted mostly by his or her policy attitudes. It perceives judges of the court as motivated by policy goals and unconstrained by the law. Therefore, they decide cases according to moral preference rather than by the meaning or intention of legal texts. One review of the attitudinal model is the fact it relied heavily on unreliable evidence. Also, the attitudinal model of decision making does not always interpret from explaining justice’s decisions at the Supreme Court. Most legal practitioners such as lawyers and judges are likely to think that a very simple attitudinal model is missing
Stuntz discusses how there has been a big shift of power in the criminal justice system. When America was first getting started the judge had more power, but today that power has shifted and the judge has less power than the prosecutors. The federal government has big concerns in other areas, while the criminal justice is not its’ own, but works differently. The responsibility and the management of the criminal justice system belong to local elected officials, local law enforcement, and state law. Also the criminal justice system tends to focus more on the Bill of Rights, which four of them are specifically about crime in America (Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth). Stuntz also discusses substantive and procedural law and shows how they can be related, but are also very different. Substantive law defines what a crime and what punishments fit, meanwhile procedural law is about the process the of the criminal justice system, for example, procedural law will explain the steps a police officer must take in order to have a justifiable arrest. There’s also a lot of comparison between the nineteenth century criminal justice process , and the twentieth century. In the nineteenth century, there was no elected officials the judge made all decisions, and prosecutors were only paid by cases and conviction, which caused to convict even the pettiest of crimes. Meanwhile, in the twentieth century the balance of power
Court room television shows and video games shave led people to think that trials should be exciting and speedy. Lawyers are now hiring illustrators, visual artist and graphic designers to transform piles of documents into sound and images. Technology to do such tasks is now at a much lower cost, making it affordable for almost any size case. Brian Carney was a former prosecutor and he noticed that jurors did not understand the evidence
Judicial Activism- judges should interpret and apply the law in the light of ongoing changes in conditions and values
The use of the jury in some trials shows how the everyday atmosphere is brought into the courtroom. Jurors have a part in deciding the outcomes of cases and as a collective decide the extent of the harm in the case. They apply socially accepted norms to the courtroom when determining the enforceable situation of the alleged criminal (Garfinkel: 104). A juror is asked to be a blank slate when entering the courtroom. However, what needs to taken into consideration is the fact that each individual carries his or her own values, bias and beliefs in any situation. They decide to what extent the case at hand goes against the standards of the normal individual. The definition of normal in this case is subjected to the context in which the event is
According to Roger Miller, “trial courts that have general jurisdiction as to the subject matter may be called county, district, superior, or circuit courts.” The majority of their cases are to be handled in-county first before proceeding further through the court system. Just as businesses and organizations have a chain-of-command or protocol system, the government has the same. Then, there are the circuit courts coming in as the middle step of the judicial system.
One of the many elements that have changed is the amount of discretion that is allowed pertaining to certain actors in our criminal justice system. It used to be that judges were allowed a great deal of discretion when it came to sentencing an individual and they could hand out sentences based on a more individual case by case basis. It seems that today the discretion has been mostly removed so there is no longer a real sense of individual justice, it now seems like the sentences are more of an equation of sorts where the offenses and aggravating or mitigating circumstances are put into a formula and the sentence range is spit out for the judge to interpret. With this setup there is minimal discretion offered to judges to sentence someone unfairly. It seems as though the prosecutors of current times have been given less discretion as well, they to fall into the equation phenomenon and the only real discretion they are given is when offering plea deals. With the majority of these changes being more current I will present an example of how discretion was used by a judge in my own case in 2005. I received a speeding citation for going 173 mph in a 65 mph zone on the US-1 highway between Sanford and Raleigh, NC. After receiving this citation I had a court
Discretion is usually described as a choice of options or actions one can take in a situation. People exercise discretion everyday. Discretion is like when you want to watch a movie and you are contemplating whether you want to watch a scary movie or a comedy movie. Discretion involves making a judgment and a decision. Although everyone experiences discretion, not everyone makes the same choices or decisions when it comes to discretion.
Justice is a vital part of the American Court System and influenced and continues to influence since the beginning of American history. Structure and organization is an important factor that creates our outstanding court systems. The State and U.S Constitutions are not the only foundation of the court systems, but also that people that work hard to thrive for justice. Today, justice and equality causes the court systems to change and adapt to continue protecting the rights of the people.
“Witness for the Prosecution” superbly demonstrated a realist view of the operating procedures in a courtroom. The actors within the courtroom were easy to identify, and the steps transitioned smoothly from the arrest to the reading of the verdict. The murder trial of Leonard Vole provided realistic insight into how laws on the books are used in courtroom proceedings. With the inferior elements noted, the superior element of the court system in “Witness for the Prosecution” was the use of the adversary system. Both sides of the adversary system were flawlessly protrayed when the prosecution and defense squared off in the courtroom.
There are certain moments in American life that have certain dignity" (38). The judicial system is a very complex system and deserves the respect and dignity that is required. It needs to be taken seriously. The public has no right to make it into a game. This is a serious process of bringing criminals to justice.
Long-drawn out trials that go on for years cause psychological stress, tension in the family of those involved in the case, and these trials make a huge dent in the money supply of the court system in the government. Each day members of the jury have to be accounted for and must receive money for their services. Using a judge is both cost-effective and smart. Additionally, judges usually don’t take as long to make decisions in court as they are both efficient in what they do and are well-informed of the subject, the particular person on trial, and they have the know-how to execute the correct sentence. “In 2010, 2,352 federal criminal defendants had a jury trial and 88% of these criminal jury trials ended in a conviction.” (Document A) Now on the one hand some...
The Role of Ratio Decidendi in Judicial Precedent. Ratio decidendi plays a very important role in judicial precedent as it is the legal principle underlying the decision in a particular case. The. Therefore, it creates the precedent for future cases and is. considered the most important part of a judge's speech.
Throughout the semester, I had the opportunity to interview people from all three components. As previously mentioned, a very important component in the Criminal Justice system is the courts. There are many different types of courts such as the Supreme court, local courts,