The criminal justice system in this country is founded upon a rooting out of all crime with laws, an offering of subsequent punishment, and an overall objective of finding justice at all costs. While the goals of the law system seem simple enough to understand, they are not as easy to obtain as one might think. This is due the extreme variance of all criminals, crimes, and the law specifics of these criminal cases; which make the processing of crime and punishment far from uncomplicated or uniform. In an effort to best understand the nature, purpose, and factors that characterize our law system; we examine below the basics of U.S. criminal law, how jurisdictions are organized, what the responsibilities of each are, as well as how this affects crime and punishment in this country.
When it comes to criminal law in this country, there is a basic law process by which potential criminals are administered through the criminal law system. The first step in any criminal law case is when a crime is committed, and depending on what evidence there is and how soon law enforcement is called to the scene-an arrest of a suspect may be made. Next, at the arraignment hearing; the arrested individual is formally charged with the crime according to the law, and given the ability to enter a plea of guilt or innocence, and determine their law representation. From here, if a plea of guilty has been entered, the court administers law sentencing. If, conversely, the defendant enters a plea of not guilty, the court will determine if there is enough evidence to go to trial-and if there is-will set a court trial date. The law trial itself involves the defendant and the prosecution-the defendant being the potential criminal and the prosecution being the government. The government is used as the prosecution as a crime of any sort is seen as an act against the community. Both sides present their sides of the law case to determine if there is probable cause linking the defendant to the crime. Depending on the information presented, the judge and/or jury will render the defendant guilty or not guilty, at which point, the defendant will be sentenced or acquitted, according to the law.
With the basic process of the U.S. criminal justice system explained, it is now necessary to understand how the federal government organizes criminal law according to jurisdictional courts and punishments. The basic jurisdictional structure operates at a municipal, county, state, and federal level-each with their own respective criminal courts to process criminal cases. Municipal or local courts deal mostly with minor crimes and infractions, while state and county courts process felonies and serious misdemeanors, and federal district courts process federal crimes. It is necessary to note that the classification of criminal law in this country is significantly dependent upon which jurisdiction it is committed in.
Which brings us to the most important legal topic in the organizational structure of the criminal justice and criminal law system: how jurisdictions classify crime. The federal government has set up a set-yet general-manner of classifying what crimes should be what level of severity, and the general punishments that should ensue. So, for example, all felonies are serious crimes that should have punishments of more than one year in prison and/or fines and other means of penalty. As you can see, this can leave a lot of gray area as to whether the minimum or maximum penalty of a felony crime should be imposed. This is why states are given the liberty on how to perceive federal regulation. This means that in some states, you will find that certain offenses are punished more severely than others-such as in the case of a DUI. Some states will expunge certain criminal records of certain offenses, such as arrests without convictions or misdemeanor crimes. So what a criminal may receive for punishment in one state, may be completely different from the penalty inflicted upon another in another state-for the same crime committed.
While state jurisdiction has a monumental bearing on the outcome of a criminal punishment, it should be noted that a variety of common law actions and defenses used in criminal cases also, have a huge impact as regards the severity of punishment. One of the most common means of finding a compromise between the defendant and prosecution in criminal cases is what is called a “plea bargain”. For a wide variety of reasons, many people involved in court cases will agree to a plea bargain, which is the accepting of guilt in exchange for a reduced sentence. The prosecution will ask that a defendant offer guilt and in exchange agree that the defendant only have to serve some of their prison term or get a reduced fine as a part of their sentencing. In this scenario, the prosecution and defendant do not have to proceed in exhaustive and lengthy law arbitration, the prosecution gets an easy win, while the defendant gets a better sentence than they would probably have otherwise gotten, if they had seen the trial through to the end.
Aside from the plea bargain route, there are a number of defenses that many defendants will use to get reduced sentences for the crimes committed in U.S. criminal law. The most common of these are defenses of: insanity, self-defense, presumption of innocence, probable cause, alibi, entrapment, or being under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. In the cases of presumption of innocence and probable cause, the defense is saying that there is basically not enough evidence presented to connect the defendant to the crime in question. As regards the other common means of defense, the defense is saying that the defendant did do it, but should not be held accountable-as they were impaired in some way-as specified above. Any and all of these defenses can be successful in obtaining an acquittal or a reduced sentencing, but again, it depends on the nature of the jurisdiction and the specific court hearing the case, whether or not success will be a result of the defense.
Now, when it comes to the overall objectives of criminal law in this country, there are three main perspectives-that are not necessarily mutually exclusive-that people take in regards to the ideal means to an end. They are punishment, deterrence, and rehabilitation. Many entities believe that one or another of these three schools of thought take priority over the other, but all are equally as important as regards the optimum health of society. The first is punishment, and deals with offering a sense of retribution to the society for a wrong committed. The second refers to having criminal laws in place to deter or stop possible offenders from committing crimes, once they are aware of what sort of punishments that they will be sentenced to. Thirdly, rehabilitation refers to most all offenders in that the legal system penalizes them in order to show them how a life more connected with their community is a better choice than one against it-with illegal activity-thus rehabilitated from crime.