Chapter 4 - Criminal Law, Crime, and the Criminal Court Process

Abstract

Law is “codified rules of conduct that are established by the government, that the people within the jurisdiction must follow, and that agents of the government can enforce with the use or threat of punishment.” Constitutional law is the obligations and powers specified in the government’s charter and forms the foundations of U.S. law. Statutory laws represent most of the laws that regulate our daily lives and are enacted by national and state legislatures. Administrative laws are written and enforced by executive branch agencies. Common law is judge-made law and has two sources. Common law refers to the rulings of U.S. state and federal judges that creates precedent on how the law is to be understood and applied. Some U.S. common law was adopted from the English common law system. Substantive criminal laws define particular acts as crime and specify punishment. Procedural laws tell criminal justice system practitioners what they can do, what they cannot do, and what they must do when they are writing substantive law, enforcing substantive law, processing a defendant, and executing a punishment. Crime is an intentional act or omission committed without justification or defense which is in violation of criminal law and punishable by the state. Substantive laws constrain the power of the state by drawing a boundary around the criminal justice system. Police, prosecutors, and courts can round up and punish only people who violate a substantive criminal law. To “activate” the criminal justice system, a person or organization must pierce that substantive-law boundary by committing, or being accused of committing, a crime. The elements of the crime include the following: an act, intent, and concurrence. Actus reus means “reality of the act” and refers to a voluntary act that causes legally prohibited harm. Mens rea, or “reality of the mind,” means that the accused intended to commit the offense and produce the resultant harm. Corpus delicti means “body of the crime” and refers to the evidence of the offense. Concurrence is the final element of a criminal offense. It means that the action and intention occur at the same time. Crimes against property involve damaging or stealing someone else’s possessions, such as burglary and identity theft. Crimes against the body refer to violent crimes against a person, such as rape or unsafe working conditions. In victimless, or consensual, offenses everyone involved agrees to be involved, so there is no clear harm or victim. These are generally considered moral or public-order crimes. Street crimes may include violent crimes like murder, property crimes, or drug sales. White-collar and corporate crimes are committed by people or organizations in positions of power and violate criminal and regulatory law. Felonies are serious offenses that usually carry a possible sentence ranging from over a year incarceration in prison to execution. Many felony convictions do not lead to incarceration but instead to probation or a diversionary program. Misdemeanors considered lesser offenses than felonies. Usually the maximum sentence is one year incarceration in jail, but must convictions lead to a fine, community service hours, probation, and other forms of community corrections. Legal reasoning is the logic, evidence, laws, principles, language, and strategies lawyers and judges use in deciding if the facts of the case match the law. Attorneys must sort through the evidence to verify that harmful behavior occurred. The main felony pretrial stages tend to be: initial appearance; preliminary hearing or grand jury presentation; bail/detention hearing; grand jury or information; arraignment; discovery; pretrial settlement and pretrial motions. The charges are explained to the defendant; the defendant is told her or his rights; the defendant is permitted to obtain an attorney or is assigned a public defender; the judge decides if probable cause exists to detain the suspect; the judge may dismiss the case if it lacks adequate evidence; he prosecutor may drop the charges; the case may be diverted into a specialized court or pretrial intervention; bail may be set; a date is set for the preliminary hearing; the attorneys can start to lay the foundation for negotiation. Legal principles, the crime control mandate, and due process restraints help to make sense of the structure of the court process. Because these are designed to be obstacles, they are in place to assure allegiance to the legal principles of legality and presumption of innocence, and, above all, due process. The court process is oriented toward process more than quick punishment.