|
|
Home | Switchboard | Unix Administration | Red Hat | TCP/IP Networks | Neoliberalism | Toxic Managers |
| (slightly skeptical) Educational society promoting "Back to basics" movement against IT overcomplexity and bastardization of classic Unix | |||||||
Criminal procedure deals with the set of rules governing the series of proceedings through which the government enforces substantive criminal law. Municipalities, states, and the federal government each have their own criminal codes, defining types of conduct that constitute crimes. Title 18 of the U.S. Code outlines all federal crimes. Typically, federal crimes deal with activities that either extend beyond state boundaries or directly impact federal interests.
Federal prosecutions follow the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, cited as Fed. R. Crim. P., which the U.S. Supreme Court promulgated and Congress passed. The Federal Rules outline the procedure for conducting federal criminal trials. The Federal Rules incorporate and expound upon all guarantees included within the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights, such as the guarantee to due process and equal protection, the right to legal counsel, the right to confront witnesses, the right to a jury trial, and the right to not testify against oneself.
State prosecutions follow the criminal procedure code of the individual state. Although every state has its own criminal procedure code, many states choose to mimic the Federal Rules. State procedural rules may offer greater protection to a defendant in a criminal trial than the U.S. Constitution or the Federal Rules, but may not offer less protection than guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. Constitution, the Federal Rules, state and local rules, and court interpretation of these documents not only set out how trials are run, but also prescribe procedure that law enforcement agencies must follow. Should an officer fail to abide by the proper procedure, the trial court may suppress evidence obtained in violation of proper procedure or even release the arrested suspect.
Law enforcement agencies are limited in their abilities well before an arrest is made. A portion of the criminal procedure process deals with an officers’ ability to stop individuals, search them or their properties, and seize any incriminating evidence the officer finds. This pre-arrest investigation is limited by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
First, the Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures. As the Supreme Court explained in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961), evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Federal Constitution is inadmissible in a criminal trial. In order to avoid illegally searching or seizing the property of a suspect, law enforcement personnel typically obtain search warrants. To obtain a search warrant, law enforcement must show probable cause, must support the showing by oath or affirmation, and must describe in particularity the place they will search and the items they will seize. Only a “neutral and detached magistrate” may issue a warrant.
There are circumstances, however, when law enforcement officers do not need to obtain a warrant, such as: where the search is made at or near the border; where the search follows a lawful arrest; where stop-and-frisk is based on a reasonable suspicion; where items that are seized were in plain view; where items that are seized were delivered to the law enforcement by a private individual; and, where there are exigent circumstances, such as threat to public safety or danger of loss of evidence.
Just as criminal procedure limits what is a reasonable search, so criminal procedure specifies what constitutes a reasonable interrogation. Since the Supreme Court's ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), police must make defendants aware of their rights prior to the defendant making any statements, provided the government intends to use those statements as evidence against the defendant. The Fifth and Sixth Amendments require law enforcement to ensure that defendants understand their right to remain silent and their right to have an attorney present during the interrogation.
The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution applies all the aforementioned substantive due process rights to state criminal defendants.
The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees criminal defendants the right to a speedy trial. Consequently, prosecutors cannot wait an inordinate amount of time before filing charges or proceeding with the prosecution after filing charges. Under the Speedy Trial Act, which Congress passed to clarify the speedy trial guarantee, a trial must begin within 70 days of the prosecutor filing the indictment.
The Sixth Amendment also guarantees the right to a public trial by an impartial jury of one's peers. The criminal justice system provides for an impartial jury by permitting both sides to utilize peremptory challenges during jury selection. If a party exercises a peremptory challenge against a prospective juror, then the court must excuse that particular juror from the panel. These challenges occur during jury voir dire, and are meant to root out bias. While neither the prosecution nor the defendant need to explain their reasons for a challenge, not every challenge is permissible. As the Supreme Court explained in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), and J.E.B. v. Alabama, 511 U.S. 127 (1994), a party cannot remove a juror solely for the juror’s race or gender.
Fifth Amendment Due Process requires that criminal defendants receive a fair trial. In high-publicity trials, trial judges have the responsibility to minimize effects of publicity on jurors’ decisions, perhaps by implementing a gag-order on the parties. In Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. 70 (2006), for example, the Supreme Court considered whether the jury was unduly influenced by the family of the victim wearing buttons with the picture of the victim on them. The Supreme Court held that there was no undue influence, because no federal rule existed that concerned spectator conduct.
Due Process further commands that defendants have the right to call their own witnesses, mount their own evidence, and present their own theory of the facts. In order to properly mount a defense, the prosecution must turn over all evidence that will be presented against the defendant and have pre-trial access to question the prosecution's witnesses.
Pre-trial would also be the point at which the defense might raise a defense of double jeopardy, if such a defense existed in the particular case. The Fifth Amendment, through the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits states from charging the same defendant with substantially the same crime on the same facts.
Once a trial begins, the U.S. Constitution affords further rights to criminal defendants. Trying to avoid convicting an innocent defendant at all costs, the law only permits the prosecution to overcome the defendant's presumption of innocence if they can show the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This very high burden differs drastically from a civil trial's much lower standard in which the plaintiff must only prove a claim by a preponderance of the evidence (i.e. more likely than not).
One rights guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment is the right of an individual to confront—cross-examine—the prosecution’s witnesses. The difficulty of upholding this right arises when a witness testifies to the police and passes away shortly after. In such a case, the prosecution would be unable to allow the defendant to cross-examine the witness. In Giles v. California, 554 U.S. 353 (2008), the Supreme Court considered whether, in such circumstances, the defendant forfeits a right to confront the witness by virtue of having inflicted injuries upon the witness. The Supreme Court held that no such exception to the Sixth Amendment existed. For additional study of the right of an individual to confront those who testify again him or her, see Kansas v. Cheever, 134 S. Ct. 596 (2013).
The Sixth Amendment also guarantees a defendant the right to assistance of counsel during trial. If a defendant cannot afford an attorney, the government is required to provide the defendant an attorney. Such defendants receive legal representation from the Public Defender's Office. The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provide that an accused shall have access to counsel at every stage of the proceedings, beginning with the defendant's initial appearance. If a defendant demands the presence of counsel during police interrogation, police must stop the interrogation until the defendant's counsel is present.
However, a defendant may choose to voluntarily and intelligently waive assistance of counsel and self-represent. This is called "pro se" representation.
The legal counseling received must also constitute "effective counseling." Ineffective assistance of counsel may serve as grounds for a new trial. Establishing ineffective assistance of counsel requires establishing that the prevailing professional norms at the time of trial render the actual assistance received inadequate and that the ineffective assistance caused a fundamentally unfair result.
Under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides, the defendant enjoys a right of not having to provide self-incriminating testimony. Thus, the defendant can choose not to take the stand, or the defendant can choose to take the stand but not answer certain questions that would self-incriminate. At the stage of a trial when the jury determines guilt or innocence, a jury cannot infer failure to appear or answer as suggestive of guilt—the “no-adverse-inference” instruction. As the Supreme Court explained in White v. Woodall, 134 S. Ct. 1697 (2014), the judge or the jury may infer adversely against a defendant who does not appear when they choose the punishment.
Stages of a Trial
After law enforcement arrests a suspect, a judge will set the suspect's initial bail, which is a specified amount of cash that allows the defendant to get out of jail after the initial arrest. If the defendant shows up for the proper court dates, the court refunds the bail, but if the defendant skips the date, then the court keeps the bail and issues a warrant for the individual's arrest.
The arraignment comes next. During an arraignment, a judge calls an individual charged with committing a crime, reads to the individual the criminal charges against laid against him or her, asks the accused whether the accused has access to an attorney or needs the assistance of a court-appointed attorney, asks the accused to plead, decides whether to amend the initial bail amount, and sets the dates of future proceedings.
The preliminary hearing follows the arraignment. At the preliminary hearing, the judge determines whether enough evidence exists for the prosecution to meet its burden of persuasion. The burden of persuasion refers to whether the prosecution even has enough evidence to make the defendant stand trial. The defense has the right to cross examine the government witnesses during this proceeding. Under Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution's, a grand jury, rather than a judge, makes this determination when the defendant is charged with a "capital or infamous crime.” Unlike the other rights afforded to criminal defendants, the U.S. Supreme Court chose not to guarantee the right to a grand jury in state prosecutions.
A pre-trial hearing is the next step in the process. The prosecution and the defense team use the pre-trial to file motions before a judge. These motion usually concern whether the court should suppress certain evidence, whether certain individuals can testify, or whether the judge should dismiss all charges for lack of evidence.
After all these preliminary stages, the defendant stands trial. Both sides offer opening statements first, although the defense can reserve their opening statement until the prosecution “rests”—finishes presenting their case. The prosecution presents its witnesses and evidence first. Then, the defense presents its witnesses and evidence. After the defense rests, the defense offers a closing argument, and then the prosecution offers its final closing argument. After closing arguments, the jury deliberates and returns a verdict.
Sentencing usually occurs immediately for infractions and misdemeanors. For such minor infractions penalties may include probation; fines; short-term incarceration; long-term incarceration; suspended sentence, which only takes effect if the convict fails to meet certain conditions; payment of restitution to the victim; community service; or drug and alcohol rehabilitation.
More serious crimes result in the trier of fact hearing evidence and arguments from both the prosecution and the defense regarding the appropriate sentence. Some jurisdictions allow the judge alone to determine the sentence; others will have a separate sentencing phase trial, complete with a new jury, to determine the sentence for certain crimes.
During a sentencing trial, the prosecution presents evidence of aggravating factors, and the defense presents evidence of mitigating factors. The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the U.S. Constitution to protect the right to a jury sentencing trial for all defendants facing the death penalty.
Before the judge announces the sentence, a defendant is entitled to allocution. Allocution is the right of the defendant to directly address the judge without the help of counsel. During this direct address, the defendant may offer a personal explanation of any unknown facts, may ask for mercy, or may offer an apology for the criminal behavior. This is an opportunity for defendants to show remorse or to offer the motivations behind their criminal acts, so as to influence the judge to be lenient.
For more information on sentencing, see the Sentencing page.
Federal Material
U.S. Constitution and Federal Statutes
Federal Court Rules
Federal Judicial Decisions
State Material
State Statutes
State Judicial Decisions
Key Internet Source
Professor Blogs
Online Journal Abstracts
Useful Offnet (or Subscription - $) Sources
other topics
Last edited in July of 2016 by Eugene Temchenko
wex: criminal procedure wex articles|
|
Switchboard | ||||
| Latest | |||||
| Past week | |||||
| Past month | |||||
Google matched content |
...
Society
Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers : Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy
Quotes
War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes : Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce : Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes
Bulletin:
Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law
History:
Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds : Larry Wall : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS : Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development : Scripting Languages : Perl history : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history
Classic books:
The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month : How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite
Most popular humor pages:
Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor
The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D
Copyright © 1996-2021 by Softpanorama Society. www.softpanorama.org was initially created as a service to the (now defunct) UN Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) without any remuneration. This document is an industrial compilation designed and created exclusively for educational use and is distributed under the Softpanorama Content License. Original materials copyright belong to respective owners. Quotes are made for educational purposes only in compliance with the fair use doctrine.
FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to advance understanding of computer science, IT technology, economic, scientific, and social issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided by section 107 of the US Copyright Law according to which such material can be distributed without profit exclusively for research and educational purposes.
This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site written by people for whom English is not a native language. Grammar and spelling errors should be expected. The site contain some broken links as it develops like a living tree...
|
|
You can use PayPal to to buy a cup of coffee for authors of this site |
Disclaimer:
The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or referenced source) and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the Softpanorama society. We do not warrant the correctness of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without Javascript.
Last modified: March, 29, 2020
