criminal law, defenses, and punishments to give insights into understanding the jury process in the prosecution of cases

 criminal law, defenses, and punishments to give insights into understanding the jury process in the prosecution of cases

Criminal laws relate to the laws enacted by the United States, whose violations become a misconduct that can result in imprisonment and fines. The legislature made the laws that are used today in America states. Criminal rules are a result of constitutional authority and regulatory bodies that passes them. These laws are affected by the case or common law interpretation and by decisions of the regulatory agencies. Under the American constitutional system, individuals, government, and state agencies work in partnership to achieve the criminal law goals and the objectives stated in the Preamble (Cole, Smith & DeJong, 2018). Over the years, criminal law concepts, procedures, and policies have dramatically impacted the criminal justice system greatly. This paper aims to discuss criminal law, defenses, and punishments to give insights into understanding the jury process in the prosecution of cases.

People are usually charged with violent offenses when they truly believe that they were responding to a situation in self-defense. Law enforcement agencies provide an opportunity for self-defense because of such considerations in their investigations. Hence, it is upon the defense attorney and client to convince a jury or a prosecutor that an act they are being accused of was rationally for self-defense (Neubauer & Fradella, 2018). Some factors are considered while determining the force that is reasonable in self-defense. Some of these factors include the aggressor’s demands, the number of lives in danger, the familiarity of the aggressor with the non-aggressor, and the weapon that is threatening life in place of attack will help the judge to determine self-defense.

In the criminal justice system, Three Strikes laws are intended to keep the habitual criminals as spelt in the legal system locked up for life in prison to prevent the recurrence of crimes (Datta, 2017). However, this regulation has faced arguments for applying a discrete size fits sentence to the repeated offenders. First, the ruling destroys the flexibility of judges and the court. It is known that each criminal and crime is different. The core reason why there are lawyers and judges is that each case under trial deserves a just analysis and punishment. Secondly, the ruling results in an increased number of criminals in the crowded and costly prison system. Notably, it is expensive to keep an individual locked up in prison for life. Prisons have been seen overflowing from the vast increase in their population hence adding more prisoners. Also, the Three Strikes Laws infringe on the 8th Amendment of the Constitution. The 8th Amendment of the Constitution restricts the usage of unjust or cruel punishment by the state. It can be argued that some of the accused prosecutions under the law often violates the 8th Amendment.

In the Criminal Justice System, the prosecuting attorney has a wide discretion of exercising their authority to determine the crimes that must be prosecuted. Such discretion has historical support by the constitutional separation of rules and public policies (Siegel & Worrall, 2018). The discretion is based on several factors, which include the crime severity, the evidence extent, the prosecutorial resources, and the truth involved in a case under trial. Victim participation and cooperation in the probe and prosecution of crimes is a core element of analysis as individuals, state, local, and federal government play some roles in crime fighting and prosecution of criminal offenses.

Individuals play a great role in fighting the occurrence of crimes. Some of the roles played by individuals are reporting and giving information concerning suspicious and criminal activities, employing preventive measures for property and personal safety, and also raising voice concerns on crimes and disorder issues. The criminal justice system divided the responsibilities for incarceration and prosecution between state, federal, and local government levels. Charges and advocacy at each level are vital in order to end mass incarceration (Murray, 2018). Many of the misconduct legislation and prosecutions are dealt with within states. However, the federal government may get involved in its ability to set terms for funding programs such as the construction of prisons.

Various crimes feature certain crucial elements. The government cannot get convictions in a court of law unless it can testify the existence of these elements. Some of these elements include, there are no crimes without rules. If an action should be outlawed, an authoritative legal body such as the state legislature should spell out in advance, the behaviors to be prohibited. The United States Constitution outlaws the ex-post factor rules that pronounces some actions to be unlawful after a behavior has occurred (Nieman, 2020). The constitution also necessities that criminal laws must be written in clear terms to enable a citizen to determine the unlawful behavior. In the American Criminal Justice, the government, through the judiciary, punishes individuals for what they do other than what they say or even think. The second elements state that there is no crime without intent. This means that intents which apply to a person’s mental state or even the psychological attitude align with an individual’s action. Further, there is no crime without concurrence. This implies that both action and intent should occur at the same time for an act to be a crime.

The crime types exist in two broad categories, which are property and personal crimes (Miller et al., 2020). Though there are two key categories, different states might have laws which deal with the variation of the offenses which fall under these two type of crimes. Personal crimes have been described as crimes that are perpetrated against a person. Some of the personal crimes include false imprisonment, rape, kidnapping, assault, and homicide. On the other hand, property crimes refer to crimes that are categorized as offenses against property. Some of these property crimes include forgery, receipt of stolen items, embezzlement, robbery, and theft. It should be noted that there exists a huge difference between robbery and theft. Robbery covers the theft of goods through the use of excessive force while carrying out a crime. Theft, on the other hand, also known as larceny, covers the stealing of goods. For example, an individual steals clothes from a retail store. It is also known that more to the two types of crimes, there are several types of crimes that exist. Criminologists group these crimes into five main categories, which include white-collar crime, consensual crime, organized crime, violent crime, and property crimes.

In conclusion, this paper gives insight into the criminal justice system and understanding of different types of crimes, including the prosecution process of these crimes. It is noted that technology is increasingly being used by law enforcement to combat crimes. Technological inventions have the possibility to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the criminal justice system. Also, it has the potential to channel critical resources away from conventional crime prevention and police strategies, which can protect people without having negative impacts such as erosion of personal freedom. Therefore, there is a need to consider new technology that is being developed to support the crime prevention strategies in general.