criminal law

Examples of criminal law in the following topics:

• Civil Law and Criminal Law

  • Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime and civil law deals with disputes between organizations and individuals.
  • Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime.
  • Criminal law also sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey these laws.
  • Criminal law differs from civil law, whose emphasis is more on dispute resolution than in punishment.
  • Civil law differs from criminal law, which emphasizes punishment rather than dispute resolution.

• Common Law

  • Law of the United States was mainly derived from the common law system of English law.
  • At both the federal and state levels, the law of the United States was mainly derived from the common law system of English law , which was in force at the time of the Revolutionary War.
  • American judges, like common law judges elsewhere, not only apply the law, they also make the law.
  • As a result, the laws of any given state invariably differ from the laws of its sister states.
  • Instead, it must be regarded as 50 separate systems of tort law, family law, property law, contract law, criminal law, and so on.

• The Rights of the Accused

  • Prohibiting blacks from attending plays or staying in inns was "simply a private wrong," provided, of course, that the state's law saw it as a wrong.
  • Currently, in many countries with a democratic system and the rule of law, criminal procedure puts the burden of proof on the prosecution – that is, it is up to the prosecution to prove that the defendant is guilty beyond any reasonable doubt, as opposed to having the defendant prove that s/he is innocent; any doubt is resolved in favor of the defendant.
  • Thomas Jefferson wrote in his 1774 A Summary View of the Rights of British America "a free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate. "
  • United States criminal procedure derives from several sources of law: the baseline protections of the United States Constitution, federal and state statutes, federal and state rules of criminal procedure (such as the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure), and state and federal case law either interpreting the foregoing or deriving from inherent judicial supervisory authority.
  • The United States Constitution, including the United States Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments, contains provisions regarding criminal procedure.

• The Miranda Warning

  • The Miranda warning is a statement read by police to criminal suspects that asserts their right to counsel and right to remain silent.
  • The Miranda warning (also referred to as Miranda rights) is a warning given by police in the United States to criminal suspects in police custody (or in a custodial interrogation) before they are interrogated to preserve the admissibility of their statements against them in criminal proceedings.
  • In other words, a Miranda warning is a preventive criminal procedure rule that law enforcement is required to administer to protect an individual who is in custody and subject to direct questioning or its functional equivalent from a violation of his or her Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination.
  • Thus in theory, if law enforcement officials decline to offer a Miranda warning to an individual in their custody, they may still interrogate that person and act upon the knowledge gained, but may not use that person's statements to incriminate him or her in a criminal trial.
  • Here, a US law enforcement official reads an arrested person his rights.

• The Right to Due Process

  • The Supreme Court of the United States interprets these two clauses as providing four protections: procedural due process in civil and criminal proceedings, substantive due process, a prohibition against vague laws, and as the vehicle for the incorporation of the Bill of Rights .
  • This protection extends to all government proceedings that can result in an individual's deprivation, whether civil or criminal in nature, from parole violation hearings to administrative hearings regarding government benefits and entitlements to full-blown criminal trials.
  • Procedural due process has also been an important factor in the development of the law of personal jurisdiction, in the sense that it is inherently unfair for the judicial machinery of a state to take away the property of a person who has no connection to it whatsoever.
  • In criminal cases, many of these due process protections overlap with procedural protections provided by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees reliable procedures that protect innocent people from being executed, which would be an obvious example of cruel and unusual punishment.
  • The term substantive due process (SDP) is commonly used in two ways: first to identify a particular line of case law, and second to signify a particular attitude toward judicial review under the Due Process Clause.

• The Sixth Amendment and the Right to Counsel

  • The Assistance of Counsel Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense."
  • Supreme Court to be criminal proceedings, which trigger the protections of that constitutional protection.
  • Subject to considerations such as conflicts of interest, scheduling, counsel's authorization to practice law in the jurisdiction, and counsel's willingness to represent the defendant (whether pro bono or for a fee), criminal defendants have a right to be represented by counsel of their choice.
  • A criminal defendant may represent himself, unless a court deems the defendant to be incompetent to waive the right to counsel.
  • The New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously held that, regardless of whether the proceeding is labeled as civil, criminal, or administrative, if a defendant faces a loss of liberty, she or he is entitled to appointed counsel if indigent.

• The Sixth Amendment

  • The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions.
  • In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

• The 18th Amendment

  • Following the 18th Amendment's adoption, prohibition effectively resulted in a public demand for illegal alcohol, making criminals of producers and consumers.
  • The criminal justice system was swamped although police forces and courts had expanded in recent years.
  • Organized crime expanded to deal with the lucrative business, and there was widespread corruption among those charged with enforcing unpopular laws.

• The Exclusionary Rule

  • The exclusionary rule is a legal principle in the United States holding that evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights is sometimes inadmissible for criminal prosecution.
  • For example, the Fifth Amendment's command that no person "shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. "
  • Even in a criminal case, the exclusionary rule does not simply bar the introduction of all evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Amendments.
  • Judge Benjamin Cardozo, generally considered one of the most influential American jurists, was strongly opposed to the rule, stating that under the rule, "The criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered. "
  • It has ultimate (but largely discretionary) appellate jurisdiction over all federal courts and over state court cases involving issues of federal law, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases.

• Basic Judicial Requirements

  • A few states have two separate supreme courts, with one having authority over civil matters and the other reviewing criminal cases.
  • In practice, about 80% of the cases are civil and 20% are criminal.
  • The civil cases often involve civil rights, patents, and Social Security while the criminal cases involve tax fraud, robbery, counterfeiting, and drug crimes.
  • In order to represent a party in a case in a district court, a person must be an Attorney At Law and generally must be admitted to the bar of that particular court.
  • Admission to the bar of a district court is generally granted as a matter of course to any attorney who is admitted to practice law in the state where the district court sits.