...particular group e.g. their behavior and attributes (MacLin & Herrera, 2006). Recognising stereotypes and understanding how they create bias, has significant effects in the criminal justice system. It is desired to maximize the amount of correct decisions jurors render, For this reason, stereotyping is important to study in a jury setting. It is also imperative to study defendant gender and crime type, as a relationship between the two may influence jurors’ verdict decisions. Gordon, Bindrim, McNicholas and Walden (1988) conducted a study to determine the effect of defendant race and type of crime on juror verdicts. The independent variable was the type of crime (burglary or embezzlement) and defendant race (black or white), while the dependent variable was the recommended jail sentence. Crime descriptions that varied in crime type and defendant race where given to an equal number of black and white students to assess. Based on this, participants determined the defendant’s jail sentence and bail amount. The severity of the crime and the probability of the defendant repeating the crime were also scaled. The studies hypothesis was supported as the white embezzler received longer jail sentences in comparison to the black embezzler and the black burglar received longer jail sentence than the white burglar Gordon et al (1988). A strength in this study was having written case scenarios where variables were easily controlled. Controlling variables increases precision...
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...The Insanity Defense The insanity defense refers to that branch of the concept of insanity which defines the extent to which men accused of crimes may be relieved of criminal responsibility by virtue of mental disease. The terms of such a defense are to be found in the instructions presented by the trial judge to the jury at the close of a case. These instructions can be drawn from any of several rules used in the determination of mental illness. The final determination of mental illness rests solely on the jury who uses information drawn from the testimony of "expert" witnesses, usually professionals in the field of psychology. The net result of such a determination places an individual accordingly, be it placement in a mental facility, incarceration, or outright release. Due to these aforementioned factors, there are several problems raised by the existence of the insanity defense. Problems such as the actual possibility of determining mental illness, justifiable placement of judged "mentally ill" offenders, and the overall usefulness of such a defense. In all, I believe that these problems, as well as others which will be mentioned later, lead us to the conclusion that the insanity defense is useless and should be abolished entirely. Insanity is a legal, not a medical definition. Therefore, mental illness and insanity are not synonymous: only some mental illness constitutes insanity. Insanity, however, includes not only mental illness but also mental deficiencies. Due to...
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...Major Williams Crime is an "action" or a behavior of an individual that violates the laws and faces consequences such as punishment. The relationship of crime and the laws are that society is governed by the government and created a set of laws which must be respected and by violating these set of laws would be considered as a "crime". Obviously, in these situations our criminal justice system plays an important role. "Criminal Justice refers to the aspects of social justice that concern violations of the criminal law". However, there are many people that still believe the criminal justice system is racially biased. Racial disparity and discrimination is one the most contentious concerns in our society since several decades. Jury Nullification is an act that “permits juries to acquit even when the facts of the case suggest they convict, and enables citizens to play more active role in determining justice and what/ whom should be punished” (Robert McNamara, 2009). In other words, Jury nullification consents the jury to return a non-guilty verdict when the defendant is certainly guilty. This paper scrutinizes on the pros and cons of race based jury nullification. Additionally, it describes against the race based jury nullification with proper evidences. Realistically, a juror’s job could be easily complete via computer if their job was to judge according merely to facts, but it is not. We depend on jurors of which are genuine individuals for a verdict simply because they...
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...man and a woman or sometimes just a man. It wouldn't help that the juries were only men, no women were allowed to be on juries. You can see this aspect of justice make an impact on some of these cases with the verdicts that they make. This idea of inequality was very clear in the case I researched involving William Abbot and Elizabeth Spark and the verdicts they both received. Inequality was a major issue in 18th century London, showing all of us just how different a society and its values were just a few...
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...his superstar attorney Johnnie Cochran to the jaw-dropping verdict of not guilty this case has made its mark in history. In 1994 Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found stabbed to death. With no other obvious suspects, Brown-Simpson’s husband Orenthal James Simpson became the object of law enforcement’s suspicion and was charged with the murders. The case was brought to trial and with seemingly solid physical evidence the prosecution went into attack mode painting a picture that was supposed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Simpson was guilty of premeditated murder. However, having a “Dream Team” defense, as it was called proved to be far more beneficial to Simpson that anyone I this nation would have ever thought. The defense lawyers used mechanisms such as racial profiling and police corruption to mangle the prosecution’s case and discredit every piece of information that was once presumed viable. The trial deliberations grabbed the attention of almost every American and for the duration people stayed glued to the television awaiting the verdict. What was the crime the defendant was alleged to have committed? What are the elements of that crime? Orenthal James (O. J.) Simpson, the defendant, was allegedly convicted on two counts of murder charges of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman. There were several elements regarding these crimes. “By definition, a crime has two basic elements: The guilty mind and the guilty act...
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...Jury Trial Analysis Raquel Hearns CJA/364 April 13, 2015 Jonathan Sperling The sixth amendment states that all accused criminals have the right to a trial by impartial jury of the state, in which the person allegedly committed a crime (Right to Jury Trial, n.d). The jury is a group of citizens selected from the state randomly, to decide whether or not the accused criminal is guilty or not guilty. Once the jury has heard and reviewed the evidence, it is their duty to determine the faith of the accused by rendering a verdict of guilty or not guilty. Although, this criminal process ends with the verdict of the jury, it all begins when a person is arrested by law enforcement for committing a crime. Once an arrest, the accused individual is booked. During the booking course the person is advised of the charges, paperwork is completed stating the offense including the person’s name, birth date, social security number and other personal information of that nature. Shortly after, the individual will be fingerprinted and photographed upon booking (Worrall, 2012). From that point forward, the person is detained for the following court procedures that include the initial appearance, the pretrial process, and the preliminary hearing. In addition to those steps, the arraignment and discovery process follows (Worrall, 2012). In the course of the initial process, the defendant stands before a judge and is informed of the former charges, as well as acknowledged of his or her rights...
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...Crimes against Persons Student’s Name University’s Name Abstract In the United States of America, the law pertaining to crime against persons is complex; due to the principle of dual sovereignty that is a component of federalism. This essay entails analysis of murder as crime against persons. Murder cases are classified by the hierarchy of acts which entails: homicide, murder, manslaughter, and lastly justifiable homicide. English courts formed the body of common law on which United States jurisdictions relied on, in developing their murder statutes. Early English common law alienated murder into two broad categories: criminal and non-felonious. Historically, the intentional and deliberated killing of a person by another person was a criminal homicide and was categorized as murder. This analysis will discuss in details historical common law and current states statute in relation to crime of murder. Introduction Under the early United States law, murder was a criminal act that was punishable by death. It was termed as the unlawful execution of a person with hatred aforethought. According to Siegel (2006) book, Criminology, murder was also defined as a deliberated intent to kill. Currently, United Sates courts and jurisdictions have adopted the English common law. However the court has carried-out some amendment to various conditions that constituted criminal homicide. Modern statutes in general segregate criminal homicide into two wide categories: murder and manslaughter...
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...E-mail Listen to this page using ReadSpeaker Email Article Print Article Share article Send Feedback An ICC verdict might damage the alliance between William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta, writes Halakhe [Reuters] The three Kenyacases before the International Criminal Court (ICC) could possibly produce three different outcomes: The three suspects, President Uhuru Kenyatta, Deputy President William Ruto and radio journalist Joshua Sang, could all be found guilty; they could all be found innocent; or, alternatively, some suspects could be found guilty and some innocent. All three outcomes have consequences both domestically and in the way the court will be perceived in Kenya and across Africa. Over 1,200 people were killed and some 600,000 displaced in the 2007-2008 electoral violence that featured their respective communities as the principal protagonists. In that election, Kenyatta and Ruto supported opposite political parties. Guilty verdict One possible outcome of the trial is guilty verdicts. For the ICC, this is an ideal ending to what has been a bruising battle inside and outside the court. Since its establishment in 2002, the court has failed to prosecute high profile suspects. To date, its only successful high profile prosecution is the Congolese rebel leader, Thomas Lubanga, who was found guilty on March 14, 2012. Lubanga was accused of war crimes, for conscripting under-age children and using them in combat. However, the conviction of all Kenyan suspects...
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...Administration: An Analysis of the Roles in the Process of Criminal Trial Criminal procedure is the process of investigating, prosecuting, and punishing crimes (Scheb & Sharma, 2013). Criminal procedure includes law enforcement activities, including the arrest, interrogation, and identification of suspects. Criminal procedure also involves a process of criminal trial, in which a person is tried for their crime. The trial process can be extensive, but criminal charges can also be settled in the pretrial process. The pretrial process largely determines the outcome of a criminal case; most criminal cases never make it to trial. Charges against the defendant may be dropped or dismissed due to a lack of evidence. The defendant may also plead guilty without trial. Many guilty pleas result from plea negotiations between the prosecutors and defendant or defense attorneys. This pretrial process makes a formal criminal trial unnecessary (Scheb & Sharma, 2013). There are various roles in the criminal trial process, including the judge, the prosecuting attorneys, the jury, and the expert witnesses such as forensic psychologists. The assortment of roles has a high effect on the outcome for the defendant. A prosecutor is responsible for determining what charges to pursue and whether to plea bargain with the defendant. A jury decides a verdict. A judge decides a sentence. A forensic psychologist can influence all of these decisions by serving as an expert witness after their interaction with...
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...Criminal Justice System Criminal Justice System Introduction Criminal justice changes in rules, procedures, and terms from state to state. However, the punishment exercised on criminals cannot vary from the standards established by the United States. A crime is classified as an act that violates the federal laws of America. Consequently, all the violations are subject to different severities of punishment. Crimes in particular can be as minimal as a traffic violation and become as severe as homicide. The severity of the crime will determine the severity of the punishment. The criminal justice system is designed in order to standardize a level of punishment to appropriately fit the crime committed. The criminal justice system is largely affected by constitutional law and has evolved significantly over time. Currently, the criminal justice system maintains itself to helping the process of reprimanding criminals. There are three elements of the system and there all valuable in the criminal justice system. The primary element is the police force. Police officers have the responsibilities to capture criminals, investigate, and testify in court based on what actions were witnessed. In some situations, police officers have the obligation to jail criminals directly from street while they await their trial dates. The second element is the court system. The court system is generally composed of a prosecutor, judge, and suspect who is referred to as the defendant in court...
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...The right to “trial by jury” is a longstanding tradition of the American people protected under the US Constitution. By its standards, a jury is composed of 12 citizens picked at random from the local community, and then screened by the attorneys handling the case. Each of these men then bears witness to the trial, and after hearing the case is sequestered to make private deliberations which must result in a unanimous verdict. The original intention of the Framer’s was to institute a system that protected the accused from unfair bias by distributing the power to decide the verdict among multiple assumedly unbiased citizens. Nonetheless, this system faces constant scrutiny due to the influence of public opinion on members of the jury, the prejudiced...
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...Intervention (chapter 12 , question 2) The first and most obvious difference between the verdicts “guilty but mentally ill and “not guilty by reason of insanity” is in the definitions themselves. The plea of not guilty by reason of insanity refers to a person that was so mentally disturbed at the time that they committed a crime that he or she lacked the mental capacity to have intended to commit that crime. Also, pleading not guilty by reason of insanity may result in the person avoiding jail time, but almost always result in the person having to be admitted to a psychiatric institution. The judge also has the option to require that the person undergo some physiological therapy, but the actual treatment varies according to the state. Another difference between the two pleas is that there is more than one form of the guilty but mentally ill defense. This is the defense of the irresistible impulse. This defense asserts that the defendant was suffering from a mental disease that that made him or her incapable of controlling his or her actions, despite being able to distinguish right and wrong at the time that the act was committed. For both pleas, sanity is determined by the judge or jury in a separate preceding in some states. In other states, the defense is either accepted or rejected in the verdict of the judge or jury. Even if either one of these defenses lead to a verdict of guilty, the sentencing court may consider it a mitigating...
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...system of Law. Also it will discuss case in which involved the Fifth Amendment and how it was used to protect the citizens of several cases and how the people were protected with the Fifth Amendment rule inside the system of law. Double jeopardy is a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being tried again on the same charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction. In most countries with the common law rule most criminals are allowed to enter a plea of not guilty or autrefois acquit, which is a French law meaning a person has been found not guilty of the same charge in a previous trial with the same evidence and cannot be retried for the same crime regardless of what new evidence that has surfaced. Double Jeopardy is a procedural defense that protects a person from being tried again for the same crime. Double Jeopardy is the oldest legal concept of western civilizations. Double jeopardy is the prosecution of a person for an offense for which he or she has already been prosecuted. The double jeopardy clause, which is in the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, was designed to protect an individual from being subject to trials and possible convictions more than once for an alleged offense. The idea was not to give the State too much over the individual, this way no individual will be subject to embarrassment, expense, and ordeal against being tried for an alleged offense more than once. It also reduces the possibility of someone innocent being...
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...Crime to Corrections A guide to our Justice System By: Joseph Reagan Abstract The following brief will be presented outside a federal courthouse to the public after a recent round up of local gang members by federal, state and local authorities. Included in the brief will be information on the process by which the suspects were taken into custody, booked and all information recorded. We will also give a detailed, step by step overview of the federal justice system as it pertains to the defendants as they work their way through the legal system. Our brief will conclude with the corrections process as it applies to a federal case. The brief is intended to make the public aware of how law enforcement, the judicial system, and corrections all work together to try to make the process through the legal system as smooth as possible to maintain due process while upholding the law. Welcome, I understand this is a difficult and confusing time for you if you are here because of the recent arrests that occurred. I am going to explain in detail to you the steps that will be taken as each suspect is processed through the jail. I will then discuss the pretrial measures as required by law to protect the defendant as well as the victims in this case. Finally, I will discuss pretrial steps as well as what will occur should a federal trial take place for the defendant. Please hold any questions till the end of my briefing so we can get through all the information as there...
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...Sentencing Criminal cases involve charges filed by the government, typically the state, alleging that a law or ordinance. Typically, a person convicted of committing a criminal offense is subject to certain penalties such as paying fine and restitution, serving time in prison or jail, or community service. Criminal law is divided into two major classifications, misdemeanors and felonies. Misdemeanors are divided into three categories simple, serious, and aggravated. Felonies are more serious crime, and are classified from the most to the least serious as follows, from A, B, C, and d. for both misdemeanor and felony offenses, the penalty for conviction generally increase in severity with the level of offense. Generally speaking, a person arrested for breaking a criminal law appears before a judge within twenty- four hours. The judge will inform the person of the charges and bail or conditions of release. For some minor offenses, the judge may allow the person to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty at the initial appearance. After the initial appearance, the defendant is entitled to a preliminary hearing to determine if there is sufficient evidence to continue the case. Generally the defendant will waive that right, and the prosecutor will file trial information, which is a formal statement of the charge. Following the filing of a trial information or indictment, the defendant will appear for an arraignment. At the arraignment, the court may read the formal charges and the...
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