Criminal Experience

I recently watched a court trial down at the courthouse on the fifth floor. And for those of you who don't know, this floor is where felonies get taken care of. This preliminary hearing was for Richard Hal Culley to make his plea and to get his sentencing. Culley was being charged with sexually assaulting a 16 year old girl this past summer. He took nude pictures of the young girl and put them on his computer and then he even put the pictures on a disc. The girl, a.k.a. the victim was in the courtroom but her name wasn't released because of reasons like embarrassment of what happened to her. Culley pleaded guilty, but denied the fact that he had submitted these pictures on the internet. He had also sent some inmates pictures of the girl, but denied that too. He said the only person he sent pictures to, were his ex-wife because he said that the girl looked like the ex-wife's daughter. Culley was a 68 year old man with a history of criminal records. Before Culley started sexually assaulting this girl, he would let the girl come over to use his internet. He was a neighbor to this girl, and noticed that she was always by herself because her mom was out doing her own thing. Culley would also buy the 16 year old alcohol, cigarettes, etc. In exchange for letting her use his computer and him buying her alcohol and other things he thought taking pictures of her was a good trade. When Culley would take pictures of the girl, he would either make her take her clothes off or leave only her bra and underwear on. He would then start taking pictures of her and touch himself. He had also told her that he wasn't interested in "her," but he was interested in her "parts." Then he climbed on top of her and began to rape her. This girl was ashamed of herself and disgusted with this old man and what he did to her. She has to live with this for the rest of her life now. The judge sentenced Richard Culley to 12 years at the penitentiary. Only 3 years minimum, and 15 years for the maximum. This experience was a great way to see how the trial processing really works. You can actually see how the process is used in person.

Chapter 11 Woman and the Law

Over the years, woman have come a long way. There's always going to be that saying that woman are supposed to be in the kitchen cooking or cleaning or looking after the kids, because that's how some men and women were raised to think. Women didn't have equal rights with men back in the earlier years. Women were under men, because men were superior to women. A woman was also never considered to be her own property...they were their husband's or father's property. I'm glad that women have come so far in life to reach equality because I think everyone that was put on earth has equal rights to one another. I know that men and women have their differences, but for a man to think he's better than a woman, that's absurd. Today there are stereotypes for men and women. Women are categorized as being weaker than men, men are stronger, therefore a man will perform better in things. That is not necessarily true. Yes, there are jobs that you have to be strong because of the lifting part, but a woman shouldn't be rejected right away to be hired from that job. Woman are often times underestimated. It's interesting to me that men actually thought less of women. Nowadays, if women aren't educated and successful in life, she is looked down upon. Well back then, women didn't really have the choice to become more educated and get a successful job. It's interesting how the world has really changed. I think that men like women that are educated, but I think some men don't like it when women are more successful then them because it makes a man look dumb or not as smart. On a time-line I found online, it wasn't until 1848 that the 12 resolutions was adopted which made it so that women had equal rights as men under the voting rights. I also found that it wasn't until 1896, that women were granted the amendment that said they had the right to vote.
I think that women and men are as equally qualified to do anything they desire.


http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womenstimeline1.html

Chapter 10 The Law and Social Change

There are certain issues in Chapter 10 that were very life changing aspects in our life. Social change, is an alteration in social relationships, norms, behavior patterns, values, and attitudes that occur over time. Like in the Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954. This case is known for the most honored opinion in the Supreme Court's work. It reflects our lives today, although it may not even be seen as being so important. It seems like everybody forgets about all the things people had to go through to get the social norm the way it is today. In this case, a father of a young black girl, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll his daughter Linda into a white elementary school. Linda had to walk a mile everyday through a railroad yard where cars are shifted from one track to another by means of a system of switches just to get to her black school. There was a white elementary school that was only seven blocks from her house, but because of her race, she couldn't go to the white school. Brown asked the principal to let Linda enroll, but he refused. Brown wasn't about to give up on this, he went to McKinley Burnett, the head of Topeka's branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and asked for help. The NAACP were eager to help out Oliver Brown. The NAACP had always wanted to challenge the segregation in public schools so they didn't mind helping Brown and his push to let his daughter into a white school. Over time, the courts made a decision...The Supreme Court struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy for public education, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and required the desegregation of schools across America. This didn't fix everything though. It didn't abolish segregation in other public areas like restrooms, restaurants, and it didn't require desegregation of public schools by a certain time. Today we don't have a problem with segregating schools...it is part of the norm now. Social change has changed many things in our life, mostly things that are for the better and make a difference in our society.

http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/early-civilrights/brown.html

Chapter 8 Juvenile Justice

What is a delinquent?
It is a juvenile that commits acts that are criminal when they are committed by adults are classified as offenders called delinquents. For example, If I were to go steal something from the mall, I would be considered a juvenile delinquent. Status offenses are only applied to juveniles because acts like smoking underage, disobeying parents, and not attending school are all offenses that are illegal for a juvenile but not for an adult.
Something I didn't know was that the term "binding out" meant that children without parents or with inadequate ones were assigned to foster families through the binding out system. AKA adoption. I work at a daycare and there have been families that take in kids because they don't have parents and are put into foster care. I have even seen parents adopt the kid they are fostering.
The progressives developed a group called the Child Savers. They were liberals who wanted to reform the juvenile justice system. They thought that children needed to be religious and train them to satisfy their needs through labor work and thrift. But the reformers believed that children needed to be in a more family oriented atmosphere so that they could be taught how to value hard work and social conformity. To me the progressives were not saving they children...they might have been forcing them to believe in a certain religion they may not have believe in, creating them something that they're not.
In the Kent v. United States, the final outcome they came up with was that juveniles be granted certain constitutional rights. In the In Re Winship they decided that the preponderance of evidence must be upgraded when the possibility of deprivation of liberty exists. In the Breed v. Jones, they ruled that a waiver to adult court cannot occur after double jeopardy, and jeopardy attaches at the adjudicatory hearing when evidence is first presented. Schall v. Martin, the ruling was that juveniles do not enjoy the right to bail consideration and reasserted the parens patriae interests of the state in promoting the best interests of the child.
When we discussed in class about giving the death penalty to juveniles, I found it interesting because I think many people even knew what the age limit was on sentencing someone to the death penalty. I didn't know that juveniles could be sentenced to death. But there are certain aspects that I agree with about giving the death penalty to juveniles...I think that if you are a juvenile and you murder more than once, you know exactly what you are doing, and if you are able to murder another human being that you are indeed smart enough to know that it is a very serious crime. I know that I was pretty darn mature at age 12, I can recall being mature even younger than that age. Now I can understand getting the juvenile some help because maybe they are just mad at the world, or mad at their parents, anything really, but the fact of the matter is, if the kid is in need of some treatment, then by all means, get them treatment instead of the death penalty.

Chapter 7 Civil & Administrative Law

Civil law, I never really understood why there was such a thing called criminal law and cilvil law. Why didn't they just combine the two into one law? Now I know why they didnt.....civil law is a private law that governs things between a nongovernmental thing like a corporation and private individuals. Criminal law is a public law. So the main difference is that civil disputes are private and criminal disputes are public.
Before I signed up for criminal justice, I didn't know what a tort law was. Let alone that within civil law, there are five major concepts. Tort law, property law, contract law, family law, and juvenile law. Property focuses on the ownership of something of value, contracts focus on agreements between people and organizations, family law focuses on the set of laws in a marriage, child custody, and other personal relationships, juvenile law applies to laws regulating behavior of minors, and tort law are cases involving personal injury to a person or property.
I learned that in civil law, the legal victim is the individual themselves, plaintiffs are the ones who initiate action, preponderance of evidence is the standard of proof, amendments don't apply to the defendant in private civil cases, they are owned by the state, the plaintiff is the burden of proof, both the plaintiff and the defendant have the right to appeal on an adverse decision, and the issue of did the defendant really cause harm to the plaintiff.

Chapter 6 Criminal Procedure

What is the main purpose of criminal procedure? Well, as I have learned from the lectures in class and reading through the textbook, there are two things that we want in our justice system. The right to have protection of our privacy which is due process model and reducing crime and the protection of public order, aka the crime control model. Yeah I think that due process is really important to all of us, but so is reducing crime. So which of these is a better model? I don't really know. That is probably why we have both of these models in our Criminal Justice System. It maintains our protection of privacy and it is reducing the amount of crime with these two models. The fourth amendment is the search and seizure law. It has the warrant clause and the reasonableness clause. I learned that in order for a warrant to be granted that there must be probable cause. I didn't know that the warrant itself had to justify where exactly the search was going to partake and the person being seized had to be on the warrant. It is because that is a way to limit discretion of the policemen. One of my friend's was having a party one time, and there were drugs and alcohol there....well the police showed up, banged on the door, walked around the house, and flashed their flashlights in the windows. The owner of the house opened the door and that gave the police the right to give out tickets to minors under the influence and tickets to those in possession of drugs. I didn't know that if nobody would have opened the door that none of them would have gotten tickets. I wasn't there, but I did have many friends get alcohol consumption tickets, and possession tickets. It just goes to show that hey, maybe if you knew the law, you wouldn't be getting tickets.....but I'm not saying that drinking and doing drugs are smart but the point is don't do illegal things and you won't get in trouble by the law! I have also learned that there are some exceptions to a search warrant. An officer can search the area of which they have arrested somebody, and it has to be at the time of the arrest. Another way an officer can withhold from getting a search warrant is by asking for consent. If the officer asks to search your car and you say yes, then he doesn't have to have a search warrant. Other ways officers don't need to get a search warrant is by searching things like when something is in plain view, open fields are not protected by the fourth amendment, therefore there is no need to get a search warrant, and abandoned property.

Chapter 5 Crime & Criminal Law

The main topic that this chapter talks about is crime and how it is involved in criminal law. So the question is what is considered a crime?

1. An act that violates a criminal law and therefore a punishment is required.
2. The person who committed the crime must have intended to commit a crime
3. And do so without legally acceptable defense or justification.

There are 4 common elements of criminal offenses known as:

1. Actus reas (criminal act), meaning a guilty act, with voluntary body movements, omission in the face of a duty to act, and be in possession of something.
2. Mens Rea (criminal intent), meaning a guilty mind.
   
3. Concurrence is the union of the criminal act (actus reas) and criminal intent (mens rea).
4. Causation is the criminal act that is the cause of the harm
5. Harm is the result of the act, the injury to another. Harm is in all crimes, even victimless crimes.

-Strict liability is the accountability without proof of criminal intent in situations where society deems it fair to do so. Vicarious liability is the accountability from one person to the next, a superior of the first person.
-Inchoate crimes are crimes that occur in preparation for an offense. It means to start or to be put into operation. Three types of inchoate crimes are attempt, solicitation, and conspiracy. Attempt meant that it wasn't a crime if it was just attempted. Solicitation involves the intent to be accompanied by intention to commit a crime. Conspiracy is an agreement between two or more people for the purpose of committing a crime. One other type could also be other parties involved in a crime. There is more than one person that is responsible or held liable for the crime.

I can't relate to these things because, for one, I'm not a criminal, and two, I don't hang around criminals. But I did learn that rape is considered to be a strict liability. When I think of vicarious liability, I think of a gang, in which there are gang members and a leader of who they follow in their footsteps, and if they're caught, the gang members will rat out each other and eventually the leader of the gang will get accounted for the crime they committed. Thats just one way I remember what vicarious liability is. A way I remember inchoate crimes are I think of bank robber's. They don't usually rob a bank by themselves, they are accompanied by another. They plan out how they are going to commit the crime, but then maybe one person backs out of it and doesn't finish what they started.

Chapter 4 Federal & State Courts

• There are 3 main things courts do to constitute justice. As the book says, one of the main purposes of the courts is to "do justice" by ensuring their rights to due process. Another way they constitute justice is, courts make public policy decisions, which involves things like money, property, and rights to competing claims. The third thing is that courts serve to clarify the law by interpreting statutes and the main principles in a certain fact pattern. I can't say that I've been in an actual court trial, but I have watched quite a few trials and I think that if I were the one on trial I would want all of those three facts to apply to me during my trial. Although some people may not think that they are not ensured of their rights to due process, it is guaranteed, you just have to know your laws.

• Learning about search warrants was interesting in a sense that I didn't know that an officer could not search your car without a search warrant unless there was probable cause of something illegal or endangering to other people. And I thought it was unique that in class we talked about how if you told the officer they couldn't search their vehicle, that the officer would automatically think the person was indefinitely hiding something or they were afraid the officer might find something a person is not supposed to have in a vehicle like a non-permitted gun. I have never been arrested or been locked up, and I thought I knew what bail was, but in class we talked about it more in depth from what I initially thought it was. I thought it was just that a person pays a certain amount of money to get out of jail until their actual court date, but then I learned that it was an amount of money that the defendant pays to the court in assurance that the defendant returns to their trial.

• When chapter 4 talked about felonies, it reminded me of when I watched a court case a week ago about a 68 year old man was charged of sexually assaulting a 16 year old girl. He had taken nude pictures of her and put them on the internet, and molested her in his own home. This case was a felony case and a felony is classified in jurisdiction as crimes the possible punishment of a sentence of imprisonment of at least one year. This man was sentenced to 12 years in prison at the penitentiary and a minimum of 3 years. I thought it was really interesting to actually get to watch a person getting sentenced for committing a felony. In a criminal process like the one I watched at the Ada County Court House, their are 3 main trials that a defendant has to go through. Those are the initial appearance, where they are informed of their rights and the charges against them, and this is also when a bail decision is made whether they are granted one or not. The next appearance is the preliminary hearing which is where the magistrate determines if there is probable cause to believe that an offense was actually committed and it was the defendant who committed the felony. And the next step is the sentencing or arraignment of a formal hearing where the defendant is again told the charges against them and told their rights. In any court case, you are allowed to have a defense attorney whether it be appointed to you or a private attorney. It guarantees that a defendants' rights aren't violated, making sure defendants' know all options before making a decision, and to argue for a lower sentence or best possible plea.

Chapter 3 Making Law

Okay, so first of all, laws are created by a legislature and they provide rules to guide conduct, and they also resolve disputes and maintain order throughout the courts. The first legal, written code was the Code of Hammurabi, which was the "eye for an eye" philosophy.

The first thing that triggered law was the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 that brought feudal law and provided the basis for common law. England developed the common law system. But after the Norman Conquest there were new rulers that created new forms of government which included courts of law.

Henry II was called the "father of the common law," because a body of law had been established and was applied nationally. These rules were written in a book called "Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England."

The next form of documentation was the Magna Carta a.k.a. the "Great Charter." It limited the power of the English sovereign and it asserted upon certain rights on the part of barons. Well, what does that even mean?!?! It means that we have the right to a trial by jury, proportionality of punishment, and the opportunity against self-incrimination.

In a stare decisis, it initially means to let the decision stand. And if there were any prior decisions on legal issues, the courts would guide there decision based upon the past decision to the current decision. It is also the building block behind establishing the value of prior decisions which are called precedents. Not all rulings/decisions are based upon precendents. There are preanouncements that are called ratio decidendi which is the reason for the decision, and it is something the court uses to conclude their decision.

Under the Constitution, there are Legislative Statutes which is statutory law, there are Executive Agency Rules and Decisions which are administrative laws, and there are Judicial Cases that are common law. The constitution creates a government, it constitutes the government. Legislatures are called lawmakers because they literally initiate the law. Legislatures have the authority to pass enactments or bills, aka statutes, and then they are revised into codes like the penal code of criminal law. And the Supreme Court has the final say so as to what is put in the constitution or not. Under individual rights in the Constitution, you have the right to seek a writ of habeas corpus which basically allows a document challenging the legality of a person's detention. It also has the prohibition on bills of attainder which the legislation imposes punishment without going through trial. And Ex post facto laws that legislation making prior to criminal conduct.

In the Bill of Rights are the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. There are 23 individual rights and the first 8 amendments are what contain the 23 individual rights. The Bill of Rights prevent federal government from abusing its power. The Bill of Rights applied on a case-by-case basis and prior to incorporation, states designed there own procedures.

• 1st Amendment:

It covers the freedoms of religion, speech, press, and assembly.

• 2nd Amendment:

It provides citizens the right to keep and bear arms, and states that it musn't be infringed upon.

• 3rd Amendment:

Forbids the quartering of soldiers in private homes against the wishes of the owner at any time.

• 4th Amendment:

It requires probable cause, forbids unreasonable search & seizure, protects people, not places or things, and exclusionary rule. It has 2 clauses in it, the warrent clause and the probable cause clause.

• 5th Amendment:

It guarantees due process, substantive and procedural law, and it prohibits double jeopardy, self-incrimination, and taking private property for public use.

• 6th Amendment:

You have the right to a speedy trial, right to a public trial, right to impartial jury, be informed of charges, confront witnesses, subpoena power, and assistance of counsel.

• 7th Amendment:

The right to a trial by jury in federal civil trials. It only applies to federal cases.

• 8th Amendment:

Prohibits excessive bail and fines, cruel and unusual punishment, like torture and executions.

Judicial Review is the power of the court that allows them to examine a law and determine whether it is constitutional or not.

Maybury v. Madison was the most important case that was decided by the Supreme Court because it had established the authority of the high court.

Chapter 2 Justice and the Law

Again, there is that question that is asked by many people, "what is justice?" There are so many ways justice can be defined as. As we learned from the dictionary definition of justice it says that it is the maintenance or administration of what is just. Well it goes further and beyond maintenance and administration. It is an ideal meaning, it is not something we can touch, but it is something that is written. I learned that within justice, the ideal part of it, we as humans will strive to learn and comprehend and practice in order to reach a legal goal. Being just might mean to be fair. So in this case that is why when I think of justice I think of how we treat people equally if they treat us equal and vice versa, if people treat us unequally we treat them unequal. It's all about being fair..
There are two types of justice I learned about and one is distributive justice. It is basically interested with how the politcal views like nation-state distributes certain goods or resources to other people. I think that distributive justice is all about doing something for its own good. We have this type of justice because it gives value to our society. The other type of justice is retributive justice which concentrates on how a society's system of law determines whether a person is guilty or innocent and then it concentrates on the proper punishment for the guilty party.
When we discussed legal realism, I understood the fact that we practice the law instead of just reading the written law.
There are 2 perspectives we talked about in class that are:

• Natural Law: A law within the law that are moral authoritative actions that are not formal statutes or procedures. They are just "God given."
• Positivist Law: Human made laws that were brought up by social norms.

The evolutionary perspective views natural law as being originated in our evolved human nature. It is something that we evolve into over time. We just know what the law is without reading it or seeing it.

We talked about mala in se which are crimes that are evil in themselves and mala prohibita which are crimes that are evil because they are forbidden. In mala prohibita, prostitution, gambling money, and drug and alchohol abuse are all crimes that are considered to be forbidden. Crimes like rape, murder, and assualt are all considered to be evil in themselves.

Due Process is a process that is due to us. You don't have to earn due process. Due process is a right that protects an individuals rights, therefore it does not deprive anyone of their liberty, property, and life. So everyone is intitled to have protected rights.

Chapter 1 Law: Its Function and Purpose

There are all sorts of ways that the "law" can be defined as, it's just a matter of who defines it. It is defined in the book that law is a written body of general rules of conduct that apply to everybody in a community, society, or culture. Again, most people would just say that law means, a rule that we go by and if we disobey the law, we get punished for it. It's just a matter of following rules and guidelines. Well what does that mean? It means that that in order to maintain a certain way of life, we have things we just do because we establish things from being right or wrong. Following a guideline means there is a certain way of doing something, so we just do it. Following the rules means we obey the criteria by what we told or by things that we have read. Law is simply trying to bind or to join everyone together in a sense that we have an organized and structured way of life. If we had no rules or regulations, everybody would be running around like wild animals. There would be things like crimes happening and murder's happening and there wouldn't be anyone to catch the criminals or murderers because without the law, there are no rules in a society and therefore people could just get away with things.

There are 6 characteristics that we associate culture and the relationship to law:

Beliefs
Values
Norms
Symbols
Technology
Language

In our culture we have certain beliefs that are ideas we have about numerous things. For example some people are Christian/Catholic and some people are Buddhist. It all depends on our own personal ideas. There are certain values that we have in our culture saying that things are bad or good, wrong or right, etc., some people don't share the same value, it is all opinionated but the main difference between value and beliefs are that a value is more specified than a belief is. We have norms in our culture that we classify as being what is expected from people and they are compatible with our beliefs and values. We have certain symbols in our culture that represent something in a way that signify something. For example sometimes in restaurants you will see a sign that has a cigarette and a line through it, it is symbolizing the fact that it is a non-smoking restaurant. Technology in our culture today has grew immensely over a short period of time. Now we have technologies that are able to detect DNA matches. We didn't used to have the technology for that back in the day. Without technology we wouldn't have the ability to do certain things accurately. Last but not least is language, we have a language that we use in our society that allows us to communicate with others. We have certain body language we use when we can't talk like a head nod or a wave.
Over centuries we have obtained certain aspects from philosopher's like John Locke, Hobbes, Plato, Aristotle, Max Weber, and Durkheim. Each one of these had different views on law and how it was pertained with our culture. Locke was all about how nature is inferior to the political state because it lacked law. He saw that humans were "blank slates" when we are born and that our actions from past experiences will result in present situations. Hobbes on the other hand believed that life is nasty, brutish and short. For the most part people will believe what they want to believe and it doesn't matter if a philosopher stated it. In our culture we do what we see and sometimes people will do things they wouldn't necessarily want to do, but conformity is something that happens in a society.