Chapter Topics

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Chapter Topics
Crime Policing Arrests The Defendant Prosecution G
rand Juries Exclusionary Rules Case Attrition The
Criminal Justice Wedding Cake
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Crime

• Crimes known to the police increased for twenty
  years, declined in the 1990s and have stabilized
  the last few years
• Data comes from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports
• Type I offenses (homicide, rape, arson,
  aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, auto
  theft, larceny over 50)
• Type II offenses (theft, simple assault, public
  drunkenness, disorderly conduct, etc.)

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Crime

• 1 in 4 crimes is Type I
• Fighting crime is a regular campaign slogan, but
  is a difficult social problem.
• Despite money and effort crime remains
  persistent.
• U.S. has the highest crime rate of any Western
  industrial nation
• A large number of American are fearful of crime,
  however studies show that is not necessarily
  related to actual risk

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Policing

• Policing is decentralized (800,000 officers in
  nearly 18,000 agencies)
• Historically connected to party politics
• Today regulated by civil service
• Modern policing is heavily influenced by problem
  solving approaches (e.g., community policing)

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Arrests

• Of crimes brought to the attention of the
  police, only 20 result in arrest (clearance
  rate)
• varies by type of crime, 46 of violent crimes
  result in arrest, but only 16 of property
  offenses
• 13.6 million people arrested
• drug and property crime arrests are nearly
  triple the arrests for violent crime

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The Defendant

• Most defendants are charged with nonviolent
  offenses
• Career criminals make up a disproportionate
  share of the arrests
• Felony defendants are
• younger, male, disproportionately members of
  minority groups, come from broken homes, less
  educated, unemployed, single

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Initial Appearance

• The police must bring an arrested person before
  a judge without unnecessary delaytypically 48
  hours
• An initial appearance is a defendants first
  encounter with the courts and judicial process
• judge advises defendant of rights
• typically last a few minutes
• for minor crimes, defendants may plead guilty
  and receive immediate sentence

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Initial Appearance

• For major crimes, the judge will set bail,
  schedule next court appearance and appoint a
  counsel if the defendant is an indigent

Bail

• Bail is a guarantee that in return for being
  released from jail, the accused will return to
  court as needed

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Bail

• procedures vary depending on seriousness of
  crime
• for minor offenses bail may be posted at the
  police station (which often has a fixed bail
  schedule)
• for felony or serious misdemeanors the court
  must set a bond amount
• Once amount is set there are four ways to post a
  bond

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Bail

• Bond procedure include
• provide cash bond
• provide property bond (equity of twice the face
  amount of bond)
• bail bondsman which posts the bond for the
  defendant and charges a nonrefundable fee (often
  10 of face value of bond)
• personal recognizance judge may release
  defendant from jail without monetary bail

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Bail

• The poor often wait in jail, while the rich are
  able to post bond
• studies show that defendants held in jail
  without bon are more likely to be convicted, and
  more likely to be sentenced to prison
• In serious cases there is a lot of discretion in
  setting the bail amount
• a few defendants are held over without bail

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Bail

• Over 700,000 people are held in jail (v. prison)
• Debate is the goal of bail to
• 1) ensure the appearance of the defendant, or 2)
  to protect the public
• preventive detention emphasizes the public
  protection aspect and allows judges to hold over
  those accused of dangerous crimes without bail

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Prosecution

• Prosecution is found at all major governmental
  levels national, state, county and local
• may be called U.S. Attorneys, state attorneys
  general, prosecutor, district attorney, states
  attorney, city attorney
• Prosecutors have broad discretion prosecutors
  decide which cases to pursue

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Filing Charges

• The sixth amendment requires the defendant to be
  given information about the charges against them
• a charging document includes the name of the
  person charged, brief description of how and
  where the offense was committed and the statute
  allegedly violated

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Filing Charges

• Three major types of charging documents
• complaint is supported by oath or affirmation
  of an arresting officer, used in misdemeanor or
  city ordinance violations
• information identical to complaint but signed
  by prosecutor
• indictment issued by a grand jury (citizens)

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Filing Charges

• There is considerable discretion in the
  prosecutors decision to follow an arrest with a
  charge.
• the prosecutor controls the doors to the
  courthouse
• very little oversightother than prosecutors are
  typically elected officials
• some police consider every decision not to
  charge as a repudiation of their policing

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Preliminary Hearing

• A preliminary hearing is the first time a
  criminal case is reviewed by someone other than a
  law enforcement official
• an arrested person is entitled to a timely
  hearing before a neutral judge to determine
  probable cause for the detention
• protects the innocent and provides the defendant
  with an overview of the case against him
• does not require the establishment of guiltonly
  probable cause

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Grand Juries

• Grand juries are different from trial
  juriesthey determine probable cause
• Two primary functions
• determine whether there is probable cause the
  defendant committed the crime
• protect the public from overzealous prosecutors
• issue a true bill if the case continues
• grand jury use varies but is used mostly for
  felonies and capital crimes

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Grand Juries

• size of the grand jury varies 6 23
• normally selected in a manner similar to trial
  juries
• impaneled for a set time and meet periodically
• legal protections of criminal court do not
  applythe work is done in secret, plurality vote,
  no right to an attorney
• prosecutors dominate process

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Exclusionary Rules

• many factors affect how the police arrest and
  prosecutors charge those accused of committing
  crimes
• The Bill of Rights and Supreme Court decisions
• Exclusionary Rule prohibits the prosecutor
  from using illegally obtained evidence during a
  trial

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Exclusionary Rules

• There are three distinct exclusionary rules
• identification of suspects defendants have
  the right to be assisted by counsel during a
  police lineup
• confessions no physical or psychological
  coercion, Miranda rights inform a suspect of
  their legal guarantees
• searches the gathering of physical evidence
  must follow certain rules and be truthful and
  relevant

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Exclusionary Rules

• Lawyers ask for evidence to be excluded through
  pretrial motions
• pretrial motions are a request to suppress
  evidence that was illegally obtained
• empirical studies show that despite great public
  concern over the exclusionary rulerelatively few
  pretrial motions to suppress evidence are
  actually filed

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Exclusionary Rules

• Debate centers on whether convictions lost, and
  the guilty let go because of the suppressed
  evidence.
• it is difficult to resolve this debate because
  it hard to determine precisely why cases are
  dropped
• we do know that far more cases are dropped
  because of a lack of evidence or witness problems
  than are dropped because the prosecutor cannot
  use illegally obtained evidence.

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Case Attrition

• The exercise of discretion (by police,
  prosecutors, judges, etc.) causes many cases to
  be dropped
• out of 100 felony arrests only 55 survive to
  trial stage
• once a case reaches felony court is highly
  likely to end in a guilty plea or trial verdict
  of guilty
• there are variations across courts in case
  attrition rates

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Why Attrition Occurs

• Legal Judgments at every stage a decision is
  made about whether there is sufficient legal
  evidence to move a case forward
• Policy Priorities prosecutors are simply not
  interested in pursuing some cases (where the
  punishment may have already occurred), yet very
  aggressive in pursuing others
• Substantive Assessments some cases are dropped
  because the officials decide prosecution would
  serve no useful purpose

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Criminal Justice Wedding Cake

• Not all cases should be treated or counted the
  same way
• Samuel Walker suggests using a wedding cake as a
  metaphorwith each layer representing a different
  type of case but with consistency in each layer
• Walker observes that criminal justice officials
  handle the various layers of the cake very
  differently

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Celebrated Cases

• at the top of the wedding cake
• dominate the news headlines, but are atypical of
  most cases
• the judicial process is carefully followed
• these cases are likely to go to a full jury
  trial
• have considerable impact on the public
  perception (too much?)

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Serious and Lesser Felonies

• The second and third layers of the cake are
  felony cases
• Differentiation between the two levels is based
  on 1) the seriousness of the crime, 2) the
  criminal record of the suspect, 3) relationship
  between the victim and the offender
• serious felonies are carefully handled and
  lesser felonies are dispensed of routinely and
  quickly

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Misdemeanors

• misdemeanors far outnumber all other types of
  cases
• half of the misdemeanor cases represent public
  order offenses, fewer than a third represent
  crimes against persons or property
• processed very differently from felonies
  routine handling, defendants are arraigned en
  masse, guilt is rarely contested, punishment is
  not severe

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Conclusion

• Americas courts process millions of criminal
  cases every yearmost are routine
• Crime rates continue to be high profile and a
  frequent subject of political campaigns
• Crime is persistent (if dropping) despite
  considerable effort and expenditures
• Discretion occurs at every stage of the criminal
  justice process