Jury Trials and Plea Bargaining - Essay Example

Jury Trials and Plea Bargaining Introduction The judicial system faces a number of issues which require immediate attention. Among these issues are clogging of the court dockets, reforms in the judicial system, efficiency in the administration of justice, corruption, the abuses in the plea bargaining system and a host of other issues which tend to undermine the faith of the public in the entire judicial system. Some of these issues have been addressed through a variety of initiatives but the perception still persists that a judicial system that is skewed towards the mighty, the rich and the influential have built-in bias against the poor litigants and other members belonging to the lower strata of society. The view is that justice is not blind, instead there is tiered or layered dispensation of justice which favors the elite of this country and disregards the rights of the common poor people. As they say, justice delayed is justice denied, as the rich can exploit the loopholes in the system, hire the best lawyers and use all the means and devices to delay a trial by numerous postponements and appeals. This is the prevailing view today, which requires governmental action to remedy this bad situation in order to improve the administration of justice and restore the people's faith in the system. Discussion Court administration falls under the rubric of public administration and many people do try to improve its efficiency through various reforms and initiatives. Judges and the other court personnel, both at the trial and appellate tribunals, try hard to find new ways to process the cases more speedily through more efficient use of both judicial time and court facilities to avoid the so-called litigation crisis increasingly seen today and experienced by litigants (Swanson & Talarico, 1987, p. 40) which should translate to a smoother functioning and avoid these costly delays. Judicial administration has previously persistently resisted attempts at reforms due to a prevailing view that judicial independence is paramount regardless of however it works with the other government agencies, mainly the police, in the administration of justice. Its independence is a stumbling block at introducing reforms because any attempt to do so is interpreted or easily misunderstood as undue interference in the so-called separation of powers doctrine, it being the co-equal branch of the other two branches of government, the executive and the legislative. This view has slowly changed over the years, as there is now an increasing realization that the sheer number of cases, both civil and criminal, have swamped the courts. This has necessitated a good number of initiatives which shifted the focus from adjudicative to administrative justice. De-clogging the courts – one good way to clear the courts is to prevent many less serious cases from even reaching the formal court system by dealing with it as early as possible while it is still in the pretrial stage. This is achieved by a number of ways like diversionary schemes, arbitration, mediation, plea bargaining and administrative penalties in an assembly-line manner which is utilitarian in nature, as contrasted to the previous rights-based theories of justice like the human rights and due process issues which are both inefficient, prone to delays and expensive (King, 2009, p. 186) because of economic considerations which trumped social considerations due to chronic budget deficits and other fiscal constraints today. Many of the rights of the accused are seen to be causing excessive delays, like the right to be presumed innocent, right to an attorney, right to remain silent, right to post bail and the right to file an appeal. All these rights are obviously needed to preclude any miscarriage of justice that might result in wrongful convictions, but in most cases, these are the ones causing the delays especially if the defense team will utilize all the means available to delay the promulgation of justice. Incorporate use of new technologies – a most obvious way to speed up trial procedures is the use of computer technologies to standardize routine court matters in a bureaucratic way but in which machines and not people, are the ones involved. An example is to maintain a database of all trial cases, in which there are many similarities between on-going cases and previous ones. This way, a judge can easily promulgate a decision based on precedents and historical records at hand based on available data at the computer database. This will greatly minimize the time doing background legal research when in fact, a similar case had already come before the bench. All he needs to do is conduct a computer search among old records or files based on his search terms. A key corollary consideration is to let court personnel be familiar with this computer technology so they can take full advantage of its benefits once implemented (Smith, 2003, p. 193). Language interpretation services – the sheer ethnic and cultural diversity of America is a key consideration when it comes to the successful administration of justice. Many people who may stand in court accused of a crime do not speak English very well, which means they are not native English speakers and may only have a rudimentary understanding of the stakes at hand. In these instances, a language interpretation service is an absolute necessity to fully explain to the accused his or her rights and the implications of the on-going trial based on informed testimony. Language translation and court interpretation services is a must for “a nation of immigrants” like America, where there is a diversity of languages and dialects; it is very likely that an accused is a person who may not speak the language of the court. Moreover, it is a statutory requirement that any evidence or testimony is given in a language different from the language of the accused, then it shall be interpreted for him in open court in a language which he understands and the demands of equitable justice mandate it so as to ensure equal access (Bowen & Bowen, 2009, p. 109). Victims Rights (past, present & future) – crime victims are usually forgotten when the issue of justice is brought up. The criminal justice system is understandably skewed in favor of a criminal to avoid a miscarriage of justice but this is slowly changing due to the activism of these crime victims who want to assert their rights as parties involved in the entire litigation process. In the past, the focus of attention was the criminal in terms of testimonies and evidence given in open court while the victim is sidelined to giving his or her testimony but only secondarily. This anomalous and absurd situation where the criminal has more rights than his victim is about to be changed as more people see the need for amendments in the criminal laws of the country. Trends in the criminal justice system is towards the new social science of victimology, where the crime victims are assertive of their rights through empowerment by retributive justice such as financial compensation, access to psychological counseling and support, and to have a say during the plea bargaining, bail setting, sentencing, and parole hearings of the convict (Karmen, 2010, p. 2). Conclusion The justice system has tried several measures to improve the administration of justice. It had pilot-tested the adoption of the plea bargaining agreement as a way to hasten the resolution of cases, especially those involving minor offenses, but the critics of this reform intended to help reduce the number of court cases point out to certain abuses committed by prosecutors and an unintended effect was to encourage recidivism (McConville and Mirsky, 2005, p. 8). The idea is to allow the state to exercise its discretion through lenient treatment to help reform the criminals. Victims today are now given the right to be heard, to express their feelings and opinions in the sentencing phase of the trial in a document called as victim impact statements (VIS) where they can ask for a harsher punishment or a longer sentence to be imposed, or if the death penalty is to be imposed, for an earlier execution date of the convict (Barkan & Bryjack, 2011, p. 177). Reference List Barkan, S. E. & Bryjack, G. J. (2011). Fundamentals of criminal justice: A sociological view. Sudbury, MA, USA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Bowen, D. & Bowen, M. (2009). Interpreting: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Karmen, A. (2010). Crime victims: An introduction to victimology. Boston, MA, USA: Wadsworth – Cengage Learning. King, M. S. (2009). Non-adversarial justice. NSW, Australia: Federation Press. McConville, M. & Mirsky, C. L. (2005). Jury trials and plea bargaining: a true history. Portland, OR, USA: Hart Publishing. Smith, C. E. (2003). Courts and trials: A reference handbook. Santa Barbara, CA, USA: ABC-CLIO. Swanson, C. R. & Talarico, S. M. (1987). Court administration: Issues and responses. Athens, GA, USA: University of Georgia Press. Read More