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Author: Alisa Smith Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000006905 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 166
Book Description
This book explores misdemeanor courts in the United States by focusing on the processing of misdemeanor crimes and the resultant consequences of conviction, such as loss of employment and housing, the imposition of significant fines, and loss of liberty—all amounting to the criminalization of poverty that happens in many U.S. misdemeanor courts. A major concern is the lack of due process employed in lower courts. Although the seminal case of Gideon v. Wainwright required the appointment of counsel to individuals too poor to hire counsel in felony cases, it was not until 1967, when the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice found a crisis in the lower courts, that the Supreme Court extended the right to counsel to some (though not all) prosecutions of misdemeanor offenses. The first step to improving our understanding of the lower courts is a concerted effort by scholars to focus on the processing and outcomes of misdemeanor cases. This collection begins to fill the void by providing a comprehensive review of the scholarly work on the lower courts in the United States. Collecting analysis from key academics engaged in work in this area today, the book reviews the varying specialized lower criminal courts, including specialty courts that have emerged in just the last couple of decades, along with discussions of the history, legal challenges, operation, primary actors (judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, and defendants), and current research on these courts. The book explores the profound consequences misdemeanor processing has for defendants and discusses the future of the lower criminal courts and offers best practices to improve them. The Lower Criminal Courts is essential for scholars and undergraduate and graduate students in criminology, sociology, justice studies, pre-law/legal studies, political science, and social work, and it is also useful as a resource providing legal practitioners with important information, highlighting the significance of consequences of misdemeanor arrests, detentions, and adjudications.
Author: Alisa Smith Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000006905 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 166
Book Description
This book explores misdemeanor courts in the United States by focusing on the processing of misdemeanor crimes and the resultant consequences of conviction, such as loss of employment and housing, the imposition of significant fines, and loss of liberty—all amounting to the criminalization of poverty that happens in many U.S. misdemeanor courts. A major concern is the lack of due process employed in lower courts. Although the seminal case of Gideon v. Wainwright required the appointment of counsel to individuals too poor to hire counsel in felony cases, it was not until 1967, when the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice found a crisis in the lower courts, that the Supreme Court extended the right to counsel to some (though not all) prosecutions of misdemeanor offenses. The first step to improving our understanding of the lower courts is a concerted effort by scholars to focus on the processing and outcomes of misdemeanor cases. This collection begins to fill the void by providing a comprehensive review of the scholarly work on the lower courts in the United States. Collecting analysis from key academics engaged in work in this area today, the book reviews the varying specialized lower criminal courts, including specialty courts that have emerged in just the last couple of decades, along with discussions of the history, legal challenges, operation, primary actors (judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, and defendants), and current research on these courts. The book explores the profound consequences misdemeanor processing has for defendants and discusses the future of the lower criminal courts and offers best practices to improve them. The Lower Criminal Courts is essential for scholars and undergraduate and graduate students in criminology, sociology, justice studies, pre-law/legal studies, political science, and social work, and it is also useful as a resource providing legal practitioners with important information, highlighting the significance of consequences of misdemeanor arrests, detentions, and adjudications.
Author: Malcolm M. Feeley Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation ISBN: 1610442016 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 365
Book Description
It is conventional wisdom that there is a grave crisis in our criminal courts: the widespread reliance on plea-bargaining and the settlement of most cases with just a few seconds before the judge endanger the rights of defendants. Not so, says Malcolm Feeley in this provocative and original book. Basing his argument on intensive study of the lower criminal court system, Feeley demonstrates that the absence of formal "due process" is preferred by all of the court's participants, and especially by defendants. Moreover, he argues, "it is not all clear that as a group defendants would be better off in a more 'formal' court system," since the real costs to those accused of misdemeanors and lesser felonies are not the fines and prison sentences meted out by the court, but the costs incurred before the case even comes before the judge—lost wages from missed work, commissions to bail bondsmen, attorney's fees, and wasted time. Therefore, the overriding interest of the accused is not to secure the formal trappings of the judicial process, but to minimize the time, and money, spent dealing with the court. Focusing on New Haven, Connecticut's, lower court, Feeley found that the defense and prosecution often agreed that the pre-trial process was sufficient to "teach the defendant a lesson." In effect, Feeley demonstrates that the informal practices of the lower courts as they are presently constituted are more "just" than they are usually given credit for being. "... a book that should be read by anyone who is interested in understanding how courts work and how the criminal sanction is administered in modern, complex societies."— Barry Mahoney, Institute for Court Management, Denver "It is grounded in a firm grasp of theory as well as thorough field research."—Jack B. Weinstein, U.S. District Court Judge." a feature that has long been the hallmark of good American sociology: it recreates a believable world of real men and women."—Paul Wiles, Law & Society Review. "This book's findings are well worth the attention of the serious criminal justice student, and the analyses reveal a thoughtful, probing, and provocative intelligence....an important contribution to the debate on the role and limits of discretion in American criminal justice. It deserves to be read by all those who are interested in the outcome of the debate." —Jerome H. Skolnick, American Bar Foundation Research Journal
Author: Theodore N. Ferdinand Publisher: University of Delaware Press ISBN: 9780874134223 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
"Boston's antebellum period was a historical watershed in every way. The city's economy was growing dramatically, compulsory education was well underway, the Irish were coming, crime was soaring, and the lower criminal courts were expanding sharply." "A resurgent bar association struggled to professionalize by shifting from the time-honored method of training lawyers via apprenticeships to requiring formal education in law schools. The Municipal Court redefined its mission by adding regulatory disputes to the docket and diverting minor cases into extra-legal channels. As it adopted a proactive stance, the court became a dispute resolution center, the prosecutor learned to manage caseflow closely and to set punishments via plea bargaining, and the court's docket grew tenfold by 1850. Minor regulatory disputes and minor vice were quietly transferred to the Police Court, and its cases more than doubled by 1850. All this took place between 1830 and 1850." "Crime also took several interesting turns. Youthful criminals and wayward children roamed the streets with impunity during the 1830s, and by 1850 they accounted for the major portion of Boston's property losses. Prohibition was a divisive issue, and liquor laws and their violations proliferated. Expanding commerce brought many opportunities for fraud, and it too became a common charge. Public drunkenness and prostitution mounted, and though the much-maligned Irish aggravated many of these problems, they by no means caused Boston's first crime wave." "Antebellum Boston witnessed the birth of the modern criminal court--a high-volume, multipurposed, criminal court using plea bargaining to dispose of the bulk of its cases. As Boston's courts moved to plea bargaining, the court's officers also became more professional, and its formal procedures grew more intricate. These contrary tendencies were unrelated in Boston." "Some might draw from the rapid expansion of Boston's criminal justice system that the community was mounting a puritanical repression of vice and the dangerous classes, but it was not simply a matter of putting immorality down. It was a calling to account of all classes by means of a just legal system that assigned punishment according to guilt. Though the Irish were assailed on all sides, they were treated fairly in the city's legal institutions. Boston's lower criminal courts were a worthy example for the nation as a whole during the antebellum years."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Author: Malcolm M. Feeley Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation ISBN: 9780871542557 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 364
Book Description
It is conventional wisdom that there is a grave crisis in our criminal courts: the widespread reliance on plea-bargaining and the settlement of most cases with just a few seconds before the judge endanger the rights of defendants. Not so, says Malcolm Feeley in this provocative and original book. Basing his argument on intensive study of the lower criminal court system, Feeley demonstrates that the absence of formal "due process" is preferred by all of the court's participants, and especially by defendants. Moreover, he argues, "it is not all clear that as a group defendants would be better off in a more 'formal' court system," since the real costs to those accused of misdemeanors and lesser felonies are not the fines and prison sentences meted out by the court, but the costs incurred before the case even comes before the judge—lost wages from missed work, commissions to bail bondsmen, attorney's fees, and wasted time. Therefore, the overriding interest of the accused is not to secure the formal trappings of the judicial process, but to minimize the time, and money, spent dealing with the court. Focusing on New Haven, Connecticut's, lower court, Feeley found that the defense and prosecution often agreed that the pre-trial process was sufficient to "teach the defendant a lesson." In effect, Feeley demonstrates that the informal practices of the lower courts as they are presently constituted are more "just" than they are usually given credit for being. "... a book that should be read by anyone who is interested in understanding how courts work and how the criminal sanction is administered in modern, complex societies."— Barry Mahoney, Institute for Court Management, Denver "It is grounded in a firm grasp of theory as well as thorough field research."—Jack B. Weinstein, U.S. District Court Judge." a feature that has long been the hallmark of good American sociology: it recreates a believable world of real men and women."—Paul Wiles, Law & Society Review. "This book's findings are well worth the attention of the serious criminal justice student, and the analyses reveal a thoughtful, probing, and provocative intelligence....an important contribution to the debate on the role and limits of discretion in American criminal justice. It deserves to be read by all those who are interested in the outcome of the debate." —Jerome H. Skolnick, American Bar Foundation Research Journal
Author: MalcolmM. Feeley Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351570641 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 556
Book Description
Malcolm Feeley‘s work is well-known to scholars around the world and has influenced two generations of criminologists and legal scholars. He has written extensively on crime and the legal process and has published numerous articles in law, history, social science and philosophy journals; two of his books, The Process is the Punishment and Court Reform on Trials, have won awards. This volume brings together many of his better-known articles and essays, as well as some of his lesser-known but nevertheless important contributions, all of which share the common theme of the value of the rule of law, albeit a more sophisticated concept than is commonly embraced. The selections also reveal the full range of his interests and the way in which his research interests have developed.
Author: Jenni Ward Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317539451 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 195
Book Description
Sweeping changes are being introduced into the lower-tier magistrates’ courts in England and Wales in efforts to modernise the system and speed up case processing. They concentrate on delivering prompt justice within a modern, efficient and technologically advanced system. But these transformations are fundamentally changing the way justice is delivered. This book analyses criminal court streamlining processes and argues that there are areas where due process protections are being undermined. Transforming Summary Justice reports empirical research carried out with lay magistrates and criminal justice professionals. Views and experiences drawn from magistrates are valuable because of the central role they perform in lower court justice. Further, magistrates provide a wider understanding of the context in which the lower criminal courts operate and enable a critical appraisal of this unique style of ‘lay justice’. This book is directed at students of criminology, criminal justice and socio-legal studies, who will find the debates stimulating and useful to engage with in contemporary analyses of criminal court justice. It will also be of interest to justice and legal professionals who are seeing swingeing alterations to the field in which they work. The book will have appeal in other common-law jurisdictions, where similar modifications to lower court justice are occurring, and also across Europe, where lay involvement in legal decision-making is being debated and becoming accepted practice.
Author: Richard Hartley Publisher: ISBN: 9780133779745 Category : Criminal courts Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
For courses in Criminal Courts, Court Process and Sentencing, and Courts and Sentencing Issues A comprehensive examination of the criminal court system and the processing of defendants From the actors in the system, including judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, through the sentencing and appeals process, Criminal Courts provides comprehensive coverage of the United States Criminal Court systems in a succinct, readable approach. It examines issues confronting the system from historical, philosophical, sociological, and psychological perspectives, and throughout there are comparisons of court ideals with what actually happens in the courts. Comprehensive coverage of the processing of offenders from when they are arrested and charged with crimes, to when they are convicted and sentenced is presented, and throughout the text, practical, real-life applications of the topics and issues give the material meaning. Included to enhance learning are: evidence-based chapter openings that provide context to the chapter's material, boxes that discuss relevant case law, chapter summaries to reiterate the chapter learning objectives, and policy-oriented critical thinking exercises based on current issues facing the system.
Author: Craig Hemmens Publisher: SAGE Publications ISBN: 1544338953 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 458
Book Description
Written by three nationally recognized experts in the field, Criminal Courts: A Contemporary Perspective explores all the fundamental topics (court structure, courtroom actors, and the trial and appeals process) as well as other ground-breaking topics, such as specialty courts and comparative court systems. This bestseller provides you with a foundation for understanding key concepts by reviewing the judicial function, the role and purpose of law, sources of law, the various types of law, and the American court system’s structure and operations. You will build on this foundation by learning about participants in the system and the pretrial, trial, and post-trial processes. Packed with contemporary examples and new pedagogical tools, the Fourth Edition has been thoroughly revised with the most up-to-date content and resources to give you a more comprehensive understanding of the criminal courts system.
Author: Alisa Smith
Author: Alisa Smith
Author: Malcolm M. Feeley
Author: Theodore N. Ferdinand
Author: Malcolm M. Feeley
Author: MalcolmM. Feeley
Author: Jenni Ward
Author: Richard Hartley
Author: Craig Hemmens
Author: Jonathan D. Casper
Author: John Ancona Robertson