Origins of American Criminal Law - Research Paper Example

Origins of American Criminal Law Introduction Every year, legislatures and the US congress legislate and or abolish and amend laws. Be it substantive criminal law or procedural criminal law the legislators pose to identify the appropriate rules to be used in the process. Origins of American Criminal Law For us to have a meaningful discussion of the present criminal law in America we have to first look at a brief history. Criminal law in the US is largely based on English common law that was imported during the colonial times.

However this fell short in maintaining law & order in the new state. The fear of judicial arbitrariness resulted in specific states and the federal government to enact law including a wider range of other sources - case law, rules of administrative, constitutions of the various states were looking at. The 14th USA constitution amendment was ratified in 1868 during the reconstruction era of the United States. Four principles are brought out strongly in the 14th amendment; to begin with the state and federal citizenship for all persons, taking no regard to race.

Second, it protects citizens against a state wanting to abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens. Further, no person is to be deprived of life, property or liberty without due process of law. Lastly, all persons should be afforded equal protection of all the laws. This amendment despite attracting many lawsuits is very significant to the US Constitution thus the protection of property and individual rights. The United States Constitution establishes a system of governing based on the sharing of power between two components namely; national and state which is not similar to the kind of government setups that are to be found in Europe.

Whist each state has its own Constitution, all the provisions have to be compatible with all the provisions of the federal government. Enabled by the averments in the US constitution both the state and national governments have exclusive powers and share others (Carlan, Nored & Downey, 2011). Exclusive powers reserved by the national government are powers to print money, the power to declare war against a sovereign state, the power to establish and operate army and navy, it is up to the national government to enter into treaties with foreign governments (McAffee, Bybee & Bryant, 2006).

Other exclusive rights of the national government are the ability to regulate commerce between states and international trade, establish post offices and issue postage. Lastly, the Federal Government makes laws necessary to enforce the Constitution. State powers are reserved for the people of US as per the tenth amendment in the bill of rights. To begin with, anyone who is charged with a crime in one state and escapes in another state must be returned to the state where the crime was committed to due process of the law.

State power to ratify amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Provide for public health and safety and Exercise powers neither delegated to the national government or prohibited from the states by the U.S. (Vile, 2012). Criminal justice system in the US is provided for by the US federal constitution and respective states. There are four main purposes that the criminal justice system seeks to attain namely; Abhorring, discouraging and deterring people from committing crime (s). Secondly, the criminal justice system protects society in general from harmful people or conduct.

Further, criminal justice system punishes individuals who have committed crime. Lastly, the justice system rehabilitates and reforms individuals who have committed crime in accordance to the provisions of the law (Neuberger, 2011). Police power is the inherent authority of a government that imposes restrictions/restraint on private rights for the protection of the public welfare and security in the United States. Preventing the infliction of injury upon by others in their enjoyment of their rights (Bufford, “California Law Review”).

This can be exercised in the formulation of laws that promote law and order in that given state, which are highly restricted by the state constitution; the Federal government however has access to broad police powers as provisioned by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 ( Tiedeman, 1886) .Most limitations of police powers are to be found both in national and State Constitutions. Legal scholars have a heated debate on what is the proper scope of the police powers of the states. It is argued that since police powers are not written, they lack the specific property associated with the rule of law.

Police power is also seen to be constructed rather than interpreted to result in plenary/unlimited power construction which becomes inconsistent with the 14th amendment (Iancu, 2012). References Carlan, P. E., Nored, L. S., & Downey, R. A. (2011). An introduction to criminal law. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Bufford, C. (n.d.). California Law Review ,vol4,no.4. JSTOR. Retrieved October 24, 2013, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3474634 Tiedeman, C. G. (1886). A treatise on the limitations of police power in the United States: Considered from both a civil and criminal standpoint. St. Louis: F.H. Thomas Law Book Co.

McAffee, T. B., Bybee, J. S., & Bryant, A. C. (2006). Powers reserved for the people and the states: A history of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments: a reference guide to the United States constitution. Westport, Conn: Praeger Publishers. Vile, J. R. (2012). The writing and ratification of the U.S. Constitution: Practical virtue in action. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Neubauer, D. W. (2011). America's courts and the criminal justice system. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Iancu, B. (2012).

Legislative delegation: The erosion of normative limits in modern constitutionalism. Berlin: Springer.