Successful Completion of Court Cases
A court proceeding is usually characterized by several participants. The most common include; the judge, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the jury, the defendant, the victim. These participants will have different views about the success of a court case at the end of the court process. The judge is usually the head of the court room (Lee, 2010). He is usually charged with the responsibility of ensuring that all court procedures are adhered to and that the defendant has been subjected to the rightful process of law (Schmalleger, 2011).
There fore his interpretation of how successful the court case has been will partly be based on how well the court procedures have been adhered to. The judge is also responsible of ruling whether there is enough evidence to proceed to trial and during the trial he also required to make the verdict on whether the client is guilt or not, based on evidence provided and what the law stipulates. The judge will also interpret success based on how well evidence is presented for or against conviction. The jury is panel that may entail between 12 and 36 people (Schmalleger, 2011). Their work is to evaluate evidence presented in the case and arrives at a “guilty or not guilty” decision by each member voting individually for or against conviction.
The jury will consider the court case a success if all the members of the jury are convinced of the decision and if the judges finally rule in favor of their decision. In a criminal case the prosecutor is usually the state’s representative (Lee, 2010). His function is usually to provide enough evidence to prove that the defendant is guilty of the crime he or she is accused of. Therefore the prosecutor will interpret the case as success when the defendant in a criminal case is found guilt of the crime. The defendant is the persons accused of committing the criminal offence brought before court (Schmalleger, 2011).
His wish in a court proceeding is usually to prove that he or she is not guilty of the accused crime. He will therefore consider a case successful if he is found not guilty. The defense attorney is the legal professional who represents the defendant in court case. His work is to organize evidence that will prove the defendant innocence and disprove the evidence provided by the prosecution group. The defense attorney will consider the case a success if the defendant is found not guilty. The victim of the crime wish for a court case is that the person accused of the crime will be found guilty and convicted. He will therefore consider the court case a success when the defendant is found guilty.
Response: Tiffany Faison
I agree with your definition of the role of these participants to a court proceeding. From these definitions, it becomes quite clear that these participants will rate the success of the court proceeding differently once the case has been concluded. This is because each participant will evaluate the case based in his or her roles in the court and their interests in case.
Carla Faison
You are right by saying that not all participants will agree with outcome of the case. Different participants have different interest in the case and some of these interests are conflicting. While the defendant and the defense attorney will be very happy with a “no guilty” ruling, the victim and the prosecutor will be aggrieved by such a ruling. The jury and the judge are supposed to be impartial in the case. Each member has different interest.
References
Lee S. (2010). Plea Bargaining: On the Selection of Jury Trials. Caltech Education. http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~sangmok/wp/plea_bargain.pdf
Schmalleger, F. S. (2011). CRJ100: Criminal justice today: An introductory text for the 21st century (11th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
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