The Rights Of The Accused And Their History - Essay Example

The Rights Of The Accused And Their History In the 18th Century, people were accused of treason because they had committed crimes against the King of England. They only needed two witnesses to the crime in order for the individual to receive a very horrible punishment. In those days, they practiced more of an "eye for an eye" kind of punishment. In other words, those who were accused were given a punishment that fit the crime, but they took the punishment more seriously than the law does today.

Today, the law says that everyone is entitled to a trial with a jury of their peers and each person must have a fair trial. This means that whether an individual is committing a crime against the President or against another person they are given a trial. The defense attorney must give a strong defense to help the individual in some way. According to the 6th Amendment to the Constitution, everyone is entitled to a speedy trial and they have a right to counsel. However, there are circumstances that would seem that the person is not entitled to a trial because the crime they committed was so heinous that they do not deserve one.

In these cases, the public has a tendency to want to fall back on the older laws where the individual should receive a judgment right away because they are guilty of the crime. In America, the individual is not guilty until they have been proven guilty by the jury. When thinking about the issues that were presented in this assignment, it would seem that the law of the land (that which most people would think was right) and the official law of the Constitution are in conflict. Some people would expect that in order to have justice, the individual who was found guilty by the public, would not stand trial, and would be taken quickly to a conviction.

The challenge with this way of thinking is that just because a person was found to be guilty by the public, does not mean that they are the guilty part. If we were to adhere to this type of law, we would find that we were convicting some innocent people. This is the reason why a trial is important to anyone's life. If they are given a trial and there is enough evidence to convict the individual, it can then be said that the law withheld the judgment. When thinking about whether these laws can stand the test of time, we have to say that they can.

They are there to protect not only the person accused, but also to protect the public. Although the crimes today seem to be larger and more outrageous than those in the 18th Century by our standards, they are still in need of an impartial jury. The problem is, that many people who sit on a jury are already biased by the crime that was committed. As an example, it would seem that it would be difficult for the individual who committed the crime in which a 9 year old girl was killed and a Congresswoman was injured severely, not to be convicted by a jury.

The jury already has some bias going into the situation and it would be difficult for them to be impartial. In this case, the law says that the individual must receive a trial and the defense must do their best to stop the person from going to jail. It would be up to the prosecution to provide evidence that the individual accused actually did the crime. This is how the American justice system works and it provides an important look at how justice works. The bottom line to this issue is that a crime has been committed and according to the law, an individual receives a speedy trial with counsel available to them.

This will be the way that trials are conducted for a very long time.