Court Stucture in United States - Essay Example

Here, some sort of legal error must be demonstrated. Because there is no higher jurisdiction, once the court of appeals has heard the case, there is no more appellate relief to be had. This piece is strictly the court system. The rules governing the court system are set forth in the procedural codes which are creatures of statute.Every criminal case has two components. They are the actus reus and the men's rea. This assignment asks me to define only the men's rea. Men's rea is the "intent level" of a crime that must be proven to sustain a conviction of the crime.

It must be met, or the prosecution has utterly failed to meet its' burden and the case must be dismissed against a defendant. These terms relate to policing and the courts. They relate to policing because it is really the police officer who initially determines what the arresting charge will be. Ultimately, the court will decide if the evidence presented will withstand a motion to dismiss the charge. For example, if a man is charged with first-degree murder and the statute states that the intent level is "with malice" the prosecution must prove that the man killed the victim with specific hatred and malice and wanting to kill that particular person.

If all that the prosecution can prove is that the man accidentally killed the victim, then the men's rea has not been met and the charge must be dismissed. Accordingly, the terms are both police and court terms. General deterrence embraces the theory that people will not engage in deviant behavior if they know that doing so will result in negative consequences. This term relates to policing. It is strictly related to police patrol and the corrections system. This is why states and federal statutes have set up penal codes and detention centers.

Presumably, if one knows that they will go to jail for stealing money, they will not steal it. The preventative patrol was a theory first tested in Kansas City. It sought to gauge whether the obvious sight of police officers or police paraphernalia would deter people from committing crimes. It was the first study to demonstrate that research into the effectiveness of different policing styles could be carried out responsibly and safely. The next term, plea bargaining is a court term. If a defendant has no criminal record or the prosecution knows that it has a weak case and is afraid to take the case to a jury, they will offer the defendant a plea bargain.

This has nothing to do with the police or the department of corrections. There is no mandate that a person is entitled to a plea bargain, it is the sole discretion of the prosecutor to offer one. It is usually an offer for a crime with a lesser penalty. The court decides whether it will accept the plea. Meaning, if the court doesn't like the offer, then the court can refuse to sanction it no matter what the prosecutor and defense attorney agree to. This is strictly a creature of the court system.

Allocution is the final result of the criminal justice system and as such is a court term. Allocution usually takes place during the sentencing phase of a criminal proceeding. This means that a defendant has either plead guilty or has reached a plea agreement. In order to receive the sentence that they bargained for, they must allocate or tell the court with specificity what acts they committed and with what level of intent they committed the acts so that the court is satisfied that all of the elements of the crime have been met.

Once a defendant has satisfactorily allocated to a crime, the sentence is imposed.