The victims' rights movement includes three major elements. The first is an interest in guaranteeing victim participation in criminal proceedings.
This dimension includes notice of proceedings and the right to be present and to be heard at them. This element also champions opportunities for victims to consult with prosecutors regarding whether to charge or to plea bargain with defendants. This set of interests may be called the participatory rights dimension of the movement. A second broad goal of the movement is to secure financial benefits and services for crime victims.This effort has led to restitution orders from perpetrators, which are required in many jurisdictions, and victim compensation programs funded from governmental resources.
This focus also seeks to secure other services, such as shelters and support services for domestic violence victims, for certain identifiable groups of victims. A third element consists of efforts to secure more certain and harsher punishment for perpetrators, including restricting pretrial release, free admission of evidence against the accused, and tougher sentencing practices.In these efforts, victims frequently become the allies of prosecutorial and political forces that support a law-and-order agenda. Sometimes these three aspects overlap as they do with evidence about the crime's impact on the victim or victim's family.
Such victim impact evidence permits victims to have a direct voice in the sentencing process, often through in-person statements at sentencing that show the degree of injury suffered, and may aid the sentencer in determining the proper scope of restitution.The general, though not inevitable, outcome of victim impact statements is an increase in sentence severity. Do you believe that criminal offenders enjoy an unfair advantage because of the exclusionary rule? The exclusionary rule permits a criminal defendant to prevent the prosecution from introducing at trial otherwise admissible evidence that was obtained in violation of the Constitution. In a sense the term "exclusionary rule" is misleading, because there are many exclusionary rules.
Some, such as the rule against hearsay, exclude evidence because it is not very reliable. Others, such as a rule prohibiting a witness from testifying if the calling party did not disclose the witness before trial, are sanctions for the failure to comply with a nonconstitutional rule. While every legal system excludes some evidence deemed irrelevant or untrustworthy, the constitutional exclusionary rule is unusual in rejecting highly probative evidence, often with the consequence of nullifying a meritorious prosecution.It is therefore not surprising that the exclusionary rule has occasioned sustained and sometimes bitter controversy In what ways might the exclusionary rule be modified so that defendants enjoy their constitutional rights but law enforcement officers are allowed to make reasonable mistakes without having their cases thrown out of court? Discuss the pros and cons of plea bargaining A plea bargain (also plea agreement, plea deal or copping a plea) is an agreement in a criminal case between the prosecutor and defendant whereby the defendant agrees to plead guilty to a particular charge in return for some concession from the prosecutor.
This may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to a less serious charge, or to one of several charges, in return for the dismissal of other charges; or it may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to the original criminal charge in return for a more lenient sentence. [1] A plea bargain allows both parties to avoid a lengthy criminal trial and may allow criminal defendants to avoid the risk of conviction at trial on a more serious charge The Pros of Plea BargainingFor the defendant, the most significant benefit to plea bargaining is to take away the uncertainty of a criminal trial and to avoid the maximum sentence. Society also benefits from plea bargaining since the agreements lessen court congestion and free up prosecutors to handle more cases. The Cons of Plea Bargaining The biggest drawback to plea bargaining is for the innocent defendant who decides to plead guilty to a lesser charge in order to avoid the risk that he or she will be found guilty at trial.Additionally, some attorneys and judges argue that plea bargaining has led to poor police investigations and attorneys who do not take the time to properly prepare their cases.
They believe that instead of pursuing justice, the parties rely on making a deal and that the details of what happened and the legal consequences for those actions are less important. Some attorneys and judges also argue that plea bargaining is unconstitutional because it takes away a defendant’s constitutional right to a trial by jury. If the defendant is coerced or pressured into a plea bargain agreement then this argument may have weight.However, if the defendant, at all times in the criminal case, retains the right to a trial by jury without pressure to make an agreement then the courts have found that plea bargaining remains constitutional. How does plea bargaining effect minorities My analysis fails to show a racial motivation behind the advent of plea bargaining as the standard mode of criminal prosecution. However, a clear bias can be seen in the impact of modern plea bargaining on the distribution of state resources towards African American defendants.
The profiling nature of the plea bargaining system helps to perpetuate a profile of Black criminals who are 'standard offenders' to be dealt with in a formulaic manner, devoid of the due process of trial. Incentives are presented to make a deal with the DA's office more appealing than a jury trial. This impact is especially clear in drug prosecutions, where African American defendants are more likely to be negatively impacted by plea bargaining in three separate manners, in a manner set forth as a standard prosecution style.This racial impact gives strong credence to the abolition of plea bargaining in lieu of a process that allows for equal resources to be utilized for African American defendants.
Correctional Systems What are your thoughts regarding prison violence? Should wardens attempt to do more to stop and prevent prison violence, especially inmate-on-inmate violence (i. e. gang-related, prison rape)? If so, what measures should be taken? If no measures are to be taken, explain why not? Gang affiliations, rivalries and disputes account for a percentage of violent incidents in prison as well.While gang members can avoid contact with other gangs on the outside, close quarters do not allow rival inmates this luxury in prison. Along the same lines, racial issues and affiliations divide inmates and can result in violence as well.
Some prisoners come into a facility with violent tendencies. The prison can increase their underlying internal aggression. Single cells reduce the opportunity for inmate violence, with the exception of suicide. When staff selects prisoner cell mates haphazardly, the results can be deadly.
Other design factors include the inability for staff to see hidden areas of the prison or housing issues.Direct inmate supervision, on the other hand, reduces violence from prisoner to prisoner and prisoners to staff. A lack of staff training or inexperience also results in prisoner violence. Poorly equipped staff may have trouble interacting with inmates or responding to them professionally. wardens across the country have adopted a variety of programs to spark a decline in prison murders, some general tactics have emerged began pulling confirmed gang members out of the general population and placing them in solitary confinement. Other states are now using similar practices in dealing with gang members.
In Illinois, corrections officials separate gang leaders from the general prison population. "They may not have been the ones perpetrating the violence, but they were involved in calling the shots. " • Corrections officials also changed security measures to combat violence. Maximum-security cells used to have curtains for privacy, but Molina said those were removed to eliminate the secrecy needed to commit violent acts. Inmates can no longer wear personal clothing, which eliminates the ability to identify one another through gang colors.
