...The United State Constitution CJ 310-02 Criminal Law April 7, 2011 In Criminal law, there is an ancient proposition saying,” no crime without law, no punishment without law. That in criminal law is based on the principle of legality. The ancient saying means that no one can be convicted or punished, unless there is a law that defines it’s as a crime. The case of Treva Hughes, Ms Hughes was driving while under the influence. She ran into Ms. Reesa Poole and killing her unborn child and was convicted. The Appeals Court reversed her conviction because the law didn’t give Ms. Hughes fair warning that it included the unborn in homicide stature. An Ex Post Facto Laws criminalizes an act that was innocent when it was committed. It is the clearest example of ex post facto laws, they’re also the rarest. Ex Post Facto also increases the punishment for a crime after the crime was committed. Just as clear an rare like the first one. An example is raising the age of statutory rape form 16 to 21. Finally it takes away a defense that was available to a defendant when the crime was committed. The Ex Post Facto ban is protect private individuals by ensuring that legislature give them a fair warning about criminal and that they can rely on that requirement. The other purpose is to prevent legislators form passing arbitrary and vindictive laws. The Void-for-Vagueness Doctrine takes aim similar to the ban on ex post facto. Void laws fails to give fair warning to individuals...
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...Practice in Courts Stacey Pedroza CRJS300-1203A-04: Proseminar in Criminal Justice Professor Samantha Carlo AIU Online University June 24, 2012 Theory and Practice in Courts In reviewing the court system of the United States there is a definite hierarchy between the trial courts, appellate courts and the supreme courts of both the state and federal levels. However, the actions of the court systems move at such a slow and hindered pace because of the bureaucracy of motions and objections among many others. The following is a review of the type of court system the United States has and why. Along with judges sentencing goals and philosophy; and sentencing innovations. Dual Court System The United States has a dual court system, comprised of the State Courts and the Federal Court Systems. Within both the State and Federal court systems there are several levels of jurisdictions. The state courts have trial courts where there is specific jurisdiction and courts of general jurisdiction, then the appellate courts and finally the state supreme court. The federal court system is similar to the state courts in that there are trial courts, courts of appeals and finally the highest court in the nation is the Supreme Court of the United States. Another piece of the federal court system is the Military trial courts, the Military appellate courts and then they will also report to the Supreme Court of the United States. Why does the U.S. have a Dual Court System? “This...
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...much discretion in sentencing criminal offenders? If they do, to what extend should their exercise of discretion be curtailed? Judicial discretion is the power the law provides the courts or a judge to choose appropriate sentencing, which is lawful . A sentence is ordered by the judge, based on the verdict of the jury (or judge’s decision if no jury) within the possible punishment set by law . Judges I believe do possess too much discretion in the sentencing of criminal offenders. In the Irish legal system, the sentencing of criminal offences is very broad for judges apart from the mandatory sentence of murder, which leaves the judge no discretion in his/her sentencing. Should Irish judge’s discretion be curtailed? Yes, I would be in favour of a more robust system where judges sentencing is more consistent. The sentencing of criminal offenders in Ireland, at this moment in time, is of the opinion that it is in fact too inconsistent. There are currently certain restrictions on the sentences which are applied to criminal offenders e.g....
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...The Impact of Sentencing Guidelines on the Criminal Justice System Public Safety Capstone Project Our criminal justice system has an obligation to impose fair sentences. The United States Sentencing Commission is the result of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 that had laws created to ensure that sentencing was fair from state to state, and a judge provided proof of that sentencing was indeed black and white. To eliminate the possibility of being unjust, the government became involved in creating guidelines on the punishment that was rendered based on the type or types of crimes an individual committed. Sentencing guidelines were imposed to set the terms that would fit the crime some of the sentencing may be a payment of a fine, community service, incarceration, the death penalty, and or probation and parole. Throughout the years there has been a concentrated effort to standardize the sentencing especially in felony offenses, and to diminish judicial discretion in sentencing. Due to this there is a perception by lawmakers and the public that arbitrary or discriminatory practice with fair and just sentencing in certain cases and or crimes. “The Federal Government and 16 States have implemented presumptive or voluntary/advisory sentencing guidelines. Each of these states has established guidelines for different purposes and most of them were asked to meet multiple goals, including punishment, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation...
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...PRINCIPLES OF SENTENCING: TOWARDS A EUROPEAN CONVERSATION Paper delivered at Conference on “The Limits of the Criminal Law” at Leiden University, January 23, 2008 and subsequently published in Cupido (ed), Limits of Criminal Law (Nijmegen, 2008).[1] Tom O’Malley Senior Lecturer in Law National University of Ireland Galway First, I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to the students of Leiden Law School for having organised this conference. Thanks to their vision and energy, representatives from several European countries have gathered in this historic venue to discuss some key aspects of criminal law and criminal procedure. More often than not, we think of European law solely in terms of European Union law, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights or both. Needless to say, the study of European law even in this limited sense is of the highest importance given its impact on our national legal systems and our daily lives. However, growing levels of legal and political integration now demand that we broaden our vision of European law to encompass the domestic legal systems of individual European states. Some work has already begun in this regard,[2] but it is only on rare occasions such as this that we can engage in a meaningful exchange of ideas and information on areas of common concern. Criminal justice is a most appropriate and worthy topic with which to begin. In times past, sentencing would not have featured very prominently...
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...Sentencing Paper University of Phoenix FOUNDATIONS OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM CJS/200 March 25, 2012 Sentencing Paper Sentencing is the imposition of a criminal by a judicial authority (Schmalleger pg 371). The five philosophical reasons for sentencing criminals are retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, and restoration. The six forms of punishments are fines, community service, probation, imprisonment, parole, and capital punishment. The relationship between sentencing and punishment in today’s courts in my opinion are carried out efficiently and effectively. The five philosophical reasons for sentencing criminals are retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, and restoration. Retribution is a form of taking revenge on a criminal. Retribution in the early days was an eye or an eye situation where now it can be perceived as the implementation of justice in the criminal justice system. Incapacitation, is imprisoning a criminal to reduce the odds that the criminal will commit more crimes in the future. Deterrence is the attempt to inhibit criminal activity by using the fear of punishment. Rehabilitation is the attempt to reform a criminal offender through education and psychological treatment to reduce the likelihood of future criminal activity (Schmalleger pg 375). Restoration is an attempt to make the victim whole again which in my opinion I would describe as making the victim feel secure that their perpetrator...
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...Faculty and students will be held responsible for understanding and adhering to all policies contained within the following two documents: • University policies: You must be logged into the student website to view this document. • Instructor policies: This document is posted in the Course Materials forum. University policies are subject to change. Be sure to read the policies at the beginning of each class. Policies may be slightly different depending on the modality in which you attend class. If you have recently changed modalities, read the policies governing your current class modality. Course Materials Champion, D. J. (2009). Leading U.S. Supreme Court cases in criminal justice: Briefs and key terms. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Lippman, M. (2010). Contemporary criminal law: Concepts, cases, and controversies. (2nd ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Schmalleger, F., Hall, D. E., & Dolatowski, J.J. (2010). Criminal law today. (4th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. All electronic materials are available on the student website. Week One: Criminal Law,...
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...Trials where the death penalty is a possible sentence have more legal requirements than non-death penalty trials, and therefore, cost more to fulfill these requirements. The requirements include costs for prosecuting and defense attorneys, interpreters, expert witnesses, court reporters, psychiatrists, secretaries, and jury consultants (“Costs of the…”) as well as “the necessity for two trials – one on guilt and one on sentencing” (Dieter). According to an article by the Death Penalty Information Center, “a non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment in the United States” (“What’s New”), “the average cost of defending a trial in a federal death case is $620,932, about eight times that of a federal murder case in which the death penalty was not sought” (“Costs of the…”). Take the state of Washington for example. A study conducted by the University of Seattle determined that “in Washington each death penalty case cost an average of one million dollars more than a similar case where the death penalty was not sought (on average $3.07 million v. $2.01 million)” (“Costs of the…”). Similarly “since the death penalty’s reinstatement in Washington in 1981, Washington has carried out five executions, each costing an average twenty four million dollars” (“Costs of the…”). This exorbitant cost can also be exemplified through the...
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...In most Federal Criminal cases, if a person is convicted, the sentence will be determined by using the United States Sentencing Guidelines. The Guidelines were created by the U.S. Congress in the 1980′s. The Guidelines were created with the goal of achieving uniformity in Federal criminal sentences across the United States. In other words, if you are convicted and sentenced for participating in a Federal drug conspiracy case in the Eastern District of Texas, your sentence should be substantially like that of a similarly situated person in another part of the country. The Guidelines are formulaic and they operate to calculate a prison term using several criteria. Broadly speaking, these can be broken down into several categories. 1. The nature of the crime 2. The accused person’s criminal history 3. Certain aggravating or mitigating factors that may or may not be present in a particular case. NATURE OF THE OFFENSE The place to begin the analysis is the “base offense level”, which may be found in Chapter 2 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual. Each particular crime is assigned a base offense level. In drug conspiracy cases for example, the base offense level increases with the amount of drugs for which the accused person is responsible. CRIMINAL HISTORY The base offense level is only the first step. In order to properly analyze a likely Guidelines sentence, one must also determine the so called Criminal History Category of the accused...
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...the lawyers follow all of the rules of evidence, and ensure that defendants get every right that is afforded to them. They make sure that everything is fair and that the jury is given adequate information in order to decide the guilt or innocence of a party. In civil trials, the judges must decide hard cases by interpreting precedent and decide which policy would be best where the law is not exactly clear on a subject. Judges are responsible for many tasks within the courtroom. The most important responsibility of a judge is to take the oath of office and to uphold that oath. They must swear that they will do their best to ensure that all official duties within their capacity are successfully executed. Judges are somewhat like referees during trials as well as sentencing agents during criminal cases. Judges are also responsible for signing warrants, attending preliminary hearings, and determining bail. An effective judge will be guided by precedent. They will interpret those cases decided before the one at hand, and will decide what those precedents dictate. If a judge is effective, then they will be able to make a stern, well thought out decision concerning a case. An effective judge will also make...
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...In the case of the People v. Smith, Ricky Franklin Smith pled guilty to breaking and entering with the intent to commit larceny and being a habitual offender; this was Smith’s fourth offense. Smith had acknowledged that he had broken a window of a warehouse, entered the premises, and took property without consent. Ricky was sentenced to three and one-half to ten years for breaking and entering. However, Smith felt he was sentenced incorrectly on the grounds that his juvenile record had been included during his sentencing hearing and subsequently, filed an appeal. In Smith’s appeal he citied that he was entitled to be resentenced, because his presentence report referenced his juvenile criminal record which is supposed to automatically be expunged....
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...Crime victims rights Advocates for victims' rights have long complained that they have been sidelined by a criminal justice system that is focused on the interplay between the state and the defendant. With the enactment of the Victims' Bill of Rights Act of 2008, that is changing. The authors examine the current state of victims' rights, the evolution of the enforcement mechanisms, and the emerging role of the criminal practitioner in regards to these rights. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT] Advocates for victims' rights have long complained that they have been sidelined by a criminal justice system that is focused on the interplay between the state and the defendant. With the enactment of the Victims' Bill of Rights Act of 2008, that is changing. The authors examine the current state of victims' rights, the evolution of the enforcement mechanisms, and the emerging role of the criminal practitioner in regards to these rights. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT] You have requested "on-the-fly" machine translation of selected content from our databases. This functionality is provided solely for your convenience and is in no way intended to replace human translation. Show full disclaimer Neither ProQuest nor its licensors make any representations or warranties with respect to the translations. The translations are automatically generated "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" and are not retained in our systems. PROQUEST AND ITS LICENSORS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING...
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... The most common means of executing prisoners on death row is by lethal injection. Some claim that this violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment (“The Tide Shifts Against the Death Penalty” 1). There are other methods of execution in the United States, such as firing squad and electrocution. There are thirty seven states in the U.S that use the death penalty (“Death Penalty Information Center Facts About the Death Penalty” 1). This includes the Federal Government, and the United States military. Thirteen states do not have the death penalty. Some states, such as the state of New York, have not used the death penalty in a number of years (“The Death Penalty in the U.S” 1). In 2004, the New York Supreme Court ruled the existing death penalty procedures violated the New York...
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...UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK ------------------------------------- x UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, : : -v: : RAJAT K. GUPTA, : : Defendant. : ------------------------------------- x JED S. RAKOFF, U.S.D.J. 11 Cr. 907 (JSR) SENTENCING MEMORANDUM AND ORDER The Court is called upon to impose sentence on Rajat K. Gupta, who on June 15, 2012, was found guilty by a jury of one count of conspiracy and three counts of substantive securities fraud, in connection with providing material non-public information to Raj Rajaratnam. Federal law requires a court to state, not only orally but in writing, its reasons for imposing a sentence “different from” a Guidelines sentence. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c)(2). See also United States v. Rattoballi, 452 F.3d 127, 128-29 (2d Cir. 2006). This will be a non-guidelines sentence, and, accordingly, the Court will both read this Sentencing Memorandum in open court and docket it promptly thereafter. Imposing a sentence on a fellow human being is a formidable responsibility. It requires a court to consider, with great care and The notion that sensitivity, a large complex of facts and factors. this complicated analysis, and moral responsibility, can be reduced to the mechanical adding-up of a small set of numbers artificially assigned to a few arbitrarily-selected variables wars with common sense. Whereas apples and oranges may have but a few salient qualities, human beings in their interactions with society are...
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...Gregg was convicted of two murders and armed robbery, the penalty for which would be death. He went to Georgia’s Supreme Court and they upheld the decision under the murder convictions, although they threw out the robbery convictions because robbery wasn’t generally a capital offense. Gregg appealed to the Supreme Court, and they took the case He desired to make the death penalty unconstitutional Gregg had two trials: one to assess his guilt and the next for sentencing Issue: “Is the imposition of the death sentence prohibited under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments as "cruel and unusual" punishment? (cruel and unusual punishment)” Decision of the Court "Holding": The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Georgia, deciding that, as long...
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