The Rights Of The Defendant In The American Criminal Justice System

The fell arbitrator form enforces vile statutes done the affable and levelheaded institutions in accordance with the prescribed criminal surgical cultivate and regulations. It consists of subsystems such(prenominal) as the lawfulness enforcework forcet, the judiciary, the everyday prosecutors and defenders, probation and parole agencies and the corrections department, and the prison institutions (Frase and Weidner, n. d. ). The criminal statutes define crimes and their respective defense teams. On the other hand, criminal procedure delineates the the stages of the criminal military operation from arrest through quest, sentencing, appeal and release from prison (Jacobs, 2007).The criminal justice system works both in the national and state levels. Each has its own set of criminal laws, moves, enforcement agencies and probation systems (Jacobs, 2007). The origination of criminal procedure is the U. S. Constitution (Jacobs, 2001). Specifically the Bill of Rights is place d in the Constitution to protect the citizens from the vast powers of government. It grants fundamental rectifys and liberties to all those living in the get together States (Jacobs, 2001). The defendant in a criminal prosecution is entitled the presumption of innocence.This necessarily means that the burden of proving his guilt beyond reasonable doubt rests upon the prosecution (Jacobs, 2001). The receivable plow cla enjoyment of the Constitution accorded the defendant a wide array of protections and guarantees such as giving him an opportunity to be comprehend. The Fifth Amendment ensures that the defendant is not tried twice or more than for the said(prenominal) offense and by the same authority. This is the right against double jeopardy (Jacobs, 2001) Moreover, the Constitution protects the defendant by guaranteeing that he does not testify against himself or the right against self incrimination (Jacobs, 2001).The rights enumerated under the Sixth Amendment confabulate to the codified rights of the accused in criminal prosecutions. The rights of the defendant in criminal prosecution ar 1) right to a speedy outpouring 2) right to a populace running game 3) right to a trial by jury 4) notice of the accusation (5) right to confront the opposing witnesses 6) right to compulsory process for obtaining favorable witnesses and (7) the assistance of pleader or right to counsel (Oxford Companion, 2005). The right to a speedy trial prevents oppressive incarceration before trial and ensures defense by the accused of his cause.The right to a public trial acts as a safeguard against abuse of discriminatory power. Moreover, it excessively assures the accused that he is intercommunicate of the charges against him. This is part of collectible process (Oxford Companion, 2005). The right to confront opposing witnesses refers to the right of the accused to cross come across said witnesses. He is also entitled to subpoena witnesses in his behalf (Oxford Comp anion, 2005). Finally, the accused is also entitled to be represented by counsel or a lawyer. The Eight Amendment on the other hand proscribes unjustified bail, cruel and unusual punishments (Jacobs, 2001). The rate of crime in the U.S. is quite appalling and this is blamed on the idle criminal justice system. The ineffective system is imputable(p) to the adversarial character and its irrational maze of procedural technicalities. jibe to Maechling, the trial is characterized by artificiality whereby it is reduced into nothing but a sport game where defense lawyers savor to outwit and use technicalities against the prosecution in their tactical defense theories. Frivolous objections and dilatory tactics ball up the trial. By reason of this growing recognition, authorities have started to look into the possibility of reform in the criminal justice system.Synopsis of Gideons Trumpet The book written by Anthony Lewis was inspired by the actual court case, Gideon v. Wainwright (19 63). Clarence Earl Gideon was arrested for a felony in 1961 in Panama City. The felony under Florida law involved the breaking and first appearance the Bay Harbor pool hall. During trial before the trial court, Gideon requested for the court to appoint a lawyer to handle his defense. The judge denied his request on the ground that state law allows appointment of counsels for indigents for with child(p) offenses and considering that the felony he was universe prosecuted for is not iodin with a capital penalty but a misdemeanor, i.e. petite larceny he is therefore not entitled to have a counsel appointed for him. Gideon had no choice but to represent himself. Gideon has been previously convicted of four felonies, homeless and destitute. He had only the education of an ordinal grader. He conducted his trial and lost. He was sentenced to imprisonment of five years. Subsequently, he applied for a writ of habeas principal before the state Supreme mash based on the alleged violatio n of his rights under the federal Constitution. This was denied.He filed his five-page Petition for Certiorari directed at the Supreme Court of Florida requesting for the Court to take cognizance of his case. He also filed an application to litigate in forma pauperis. His important argument was that his credit violated the due process clause of the ordinal Amendment to the Constitution. He claimed that when he was deprived the right to counsel during a trial for a felony, it was tantamount to depriving him his right to due process of the law. The Supreme Court of U. S. granted Gideons petition and the judgement of conviction was reversed and re gayded to the Supreme Court of Florida.In so doing, the ruling in the case of Betts v. Brady and Progeny was overturn. In the Betts case, Court ruled that the appointment of counsel is not a fundamental right essential to a fair trial 316 U. S. 455 (1942). It laid down the ruler that the right to be represented by counsel is not necess ary in state cases involving non capital offenses except in special circumstances. In Gideon, the Court in abandoning the Betts reasoning ruled that the right to assistance of counsel is imperative, basic and fundamental and the Fourteenth Amendment requires that the same be available and applicable in state courts.Synopsis of The Onion Field This book was written by Joseph Wambaugh. The novel is about the two felony car officers who patrolled the side streets of Hollywood and Sunset Boulevard. Ian Campbell was breaking in Karl Hettinger, who was new assigned to felony cars. In the evening of March 9, 1963, both were patrolling and noticed a suspicious 1946 Ford. some(prenominal) discrete to check it out. The two men in the Ford were responsible for the robberies in the area. Powell exited the car and poked a submarine at Campbell while Smith exited the passenger side.Hettinger was asked to hand his gun to Smith and both cops were forced to derive in the Ford. Campbell at gunpoi nt drove the Ford while Hettinger laid flat on the news report of the backseat. They were assured that they would be released when they get to the remote area so that it would take time for them to get help. aft(prenominal) driving for sometime, they stopped and both were asked to get out of the car. Powell fired at Campbell and hit him in his mouth. Hettinger ran to the airfield while he heard four more shots. Both culprits were apprehended and went through custodial investigation. Both pointed to each other as to who shot Campbell.After many years of dilatory motions, appeals and lengthy trials, both were tack wrong and sentenced to death in 1967. Since death penalty was abolished in the early 1970s, their sentences were commuted to life. Discussion and Analysis The main theme of Gideons is that society moldinessiness protect a person charged with an offense. The rights and liberties afforded to him by the law and the Constitution must be strictly detect and enforced. The accused must be presumed innocent until be guilty and he must be afforded the right to have counsel because this is part of the right to due process.The study of law requires knowledge, skill and experience in trial proceedings. Even an educated and intelligent man who is not properly educated and trained in law is considered incompetent and unable to defend himself. Courts are created to punish and deprive the guilty of their liberties through imprisonment and other imposable penalties. Thus, it is imperative that if a person is charged with an offense in court he must be able to put a defense and be heard by a properly trained counsel. To deprive him of this would be tantamount to depriving him of due process and would render nugatory the basic tenets of the Bill of Rights.A person charged of an offense would need the expertness of a counsel so that he does not risk himself of being convicted even if he be innocent simply because he does not know how to establish his innocence. M ore so an uneducated man, a feeble minded person or an indigent. Consequently, it becomes the duty of the court to appoint counsel so that such person whitethorn not be denied due process of law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The central theme in The Onion Field is that the defendants brought to trial are guilty already.It also justifies the use of deadly force by the court-ordered doctrine to achieve their ends so that it can serve to prevent crime. It also portrays the weakness of the legal system when it can be manipulated to prolong and lengthen the trial by legal tactics and dilatory measures by the defense which further victimized the cop who survived the crimeHettinger. He was asked to relive and testify over and over again the details of the incident. The courts have been overly protective of the rights of the defendants that it defeats the very ends of a peaceful and safer society. Similarly, there are two fabrics of criminal law that are subject of heated deb ates.Central to this hostility is rooted from the goals of the criminal justice system firstly, the need to enforce and implement the laws to maintain peace and societal order and secondly, the need to protect populate from being victims of injustice. The first goal is the crime throw personate, as developed by Herbert Packer in 1960s while the second is the due process sham (Schmalleger, 1999). The crime control model has placed its priority upon arrest, prosecution and conviction of criminals. This model supports and justifies all acts of the police and prosecution on an all out war against crime.This includes profiling, sting operations, patrolling areas that are high risk and the like. It entails fast-growing(a) identification, pursuit, isolation and prosecution of the criminals. This model allows collateral damage or acceptable losses even if this be a human life (Perron, n. d. ). For instance, a 75-year old see was handcuffed during a raid on drugs. He suffered and died of a heart attack. Later it turned out that the informant gave a wrong apartment number. The minister is considered a collateral damage in the war against drugs (Perron, n. d. ).Moreover, the crime control model assumes the defendant is already guilty even before trial. In the book, The Onion Field the investigating police officers already imitation that Powell and Smith are guilty of the crimes for which they were being investigated even before their trial. This can be seen from Smiths apprehension when he was thrown to the floor of his bedroom and shouted at by the apprehending officers as a cop-killer. Due to countless motions and re-trials, Hettinger was made to relive and recount his ordeal. He was on moral trial by his colleagues.He resigned and got involved in petty thefts and was never the same again. Hettinger was the collateral damage. The Due Process Model focuses on protecting the rights and liberties of the defendant in criminal prosecutions. Perron, a certified crimi nal investigator claims that the due process model demands a careful and informed consideration of the facts of each individual case. According to this model, law enforcement agents must recognize the rights of suspects during arrest, questioning, and handling. In addition, constitutional guarantees must be considered by judges and prosecutors during trials.The primary mission of the due process model is to protect innocent people from wrongful conviction. This model is guided by the rationale that it is better to release guilty persons than to prosecute and incarcerate an innocent person. It recognizes the innocence of the accused before conviction and therefore prescribes as an imperative the observance and respect to the rights of persons during criminal prosecutions. It protects the rights of an individual first and foremost since the rights of one represent the rights of the many (Perron, n. d. ).The book, Gideons Trumpet may illustrate the due process model. The case was hea rd at the time when the Betts principle was controlling. This means that the accused can only be appointed a counsel in case where he is charged with a capital offense. The Supreme Court overturned this dictum and laid down a principle that indigent defendants in all criminal prosecutions must be given the right to assisted by counsel otherwise this will be a denial of his right to due process. Gideons upholds the rights of the accused in criminal prosecutions and considers him innocent until proven guilty.To a certain extent, the book The Onion Field illustrates also a due process model principle in that the numerous trials and hearings manifested a system that allowed due process or the right of the accused to be heard and present his own evidence during trial. For the law enforcement, the due process model only frustrates and delays the extermination of crime in the society. It is claimed that observance of the rights of the accused only lengthens the process of putting the crim inal behind bars. It protects the guilty at the expense of innocent individuals.On the other hand, advocates of due process model believe that crime control model is prone to commit errors that result consequently in the conviction of the innocent. They believe that it is too bitter and believes in the philosophy of a police state (Perron, n. d. ). Conclusion These two models are susceptible to being reconciled and rationalized. As proposed by a noted criminologist Frank Scmalleger in his book, Criminal evaluator at once claimed that the American criminal justice system works as a crime control through due process. According to him, this new model balances the different strengths and weaknesses of the previous two models.It harnesses the strong points of each model and avoids their respective pitfalls. This means that law enforcement strategies to control crime and apprehend criminals can continue under the philosophy of still brining the defendant to court for prosecution. Altho ugh evidence may be gathered as to prove existent guilt still the judiciary is left with the role of establishing legal guilt. The greatest challenge that is facing the criminal justice system is finding balance between the rights of the defendant in criminal prosecutions and the interest of the people in the society to impose punishment on the guilty.As between the crime control model and the due process model, I would prefer to live in the due process model of criminal justice. The joined States symbolizes stability and democracy and its Constitution as the bedrock of society. Advocating crime control model would mean the high risk of violations of civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence of our forefathers. All men are created equal with unalienable rights in seeking life, liberty and happiness. By leaving to the power and free will of the police and law enforcement, the prerogative to adjudge guilt i.e. fact ual guilt would mean leaving the conclusiveness to curtailing freedom and liberties in the hands of men who are not properly trained to seek legal guilt. It would also mean that rules in determining factual guilt may be relative and inhering unlike if this was determined in accordance with laws and judicial pronouncements based on jurisprudence and sound judicial principles. In order to keep order and peace in a society, laws are to be observed with uniformity and with a clear and informed consideration of the facts before one is convicted.The due process model makes use of an objective and just standards of determination of guilt or innocence rather than one that may be subjective and error prone. References Frase, R. and Weidner, R. Criminal justice system structural and theoretical components of criminal justice systems, the systems in operation, the importance of viewing criminal justice as a system. American Law and ratified Information web site Crime and Justice vol. 1. R etrieved on November 19, 2007, from http//law. jrank. org/pages/858/Criminal-Justice-System. html. Jacobs, J.Criminal justice in the United States A primer, American Studies Journal, 2007 Special Edition, No. 49. Retrieved on November 19, 2007, from http//asjournal. zusas. uni-halle. de/76. html. Jacobs, J. , Issues of Democracy, 2001. Retrieved on November 9, 2007, from http//usinfo. state. gov/journals/itdhr/0701/ijde/jacobs. htm. Lewis, A. , Gideons Trumpet, (New York Random House, Inc. , 1964. Maechling, Jr. , C. , The crisis of an American criminal justice 1996. Retrieved on November 20, 2007, from http//www. cosmos-club. org/web/journals/1996/maechling.html Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, Sixth Amendment (Oxford Oxford University Press, 2005). Peak, K. , Justice Administration, third edition 2001, Prentice Hall. Perron, B. The crime control and due process models The Criminal Defense learning Council. Retrieved on November 21, 2007, from http//www. defenseinvestigator. com/article10. html_ftnref4 Schmalleger, F. , Criminal Justice Today, fifth edition, Prentice Hall 1999. Wambaugh, F. , The Onion Field, London genus Quercus 21 Bloomsbury Square, 2007 edition.