final Flashcards
What are some types of prosecutors?
U.S. Attorneys, AUSA, District Attorneys, and City Attorneys
What alternatives to prosecution?
Diverson, Deferred prosecution, and deferred sentencing.
True or False: Prosecutors have absolute immunity?
True; when then act as advocates meaning when they are charging a defendant.
When do you prosecutors have qualifed immunity?
When they act as administrators or investigators and when they make reasonable mistakes.
How did the job of a prosecutor evolve?
Throughout history it moved from private to public, centralized to decentralized, and appointed to elected.
What type of attorney is found in the Federal Level?
Attorney General, U.S. Attorney and AUSA and Solicitor General.
Who is the head of the Department of Justice?
Attorney General
Who is in charge in representing the governement in suits and appeals in the Supreme Court?
Solicitor General
Where is most of the criminal work conducted?
At the county level.
What type of attorney does work in the county level?
District Attorneys
In 1920 how did the face of the prosecution world look like?
The have reached a pinnacle of power in the criminal justice system.
What factors motivate the prosecutor to change the charge from a legal stand point?
Strenght of the evidence. relationship between the defendant and the victim, defendat’s prior history, and facts of the case.
Define the no-drop prosecution.
The practice of not dropping charges against domestic-violence victims that emerged as a response to the high rate of dismissals in domestic- violence case.
Define Diversion.
An informal or programmatic method of steering an offender out of the criminal justice system.
What is deferred prosecution?
putting off tor delaying criminal charges against a suspect.
Define absolute immunity.
the total immunity of a prosecutor from a suit.
True or False: Prosecutors have to obey ethical standards?
True
True of False: There is a safety issue when is comes to prosecutors?
True
What is the perecentage of prosecutors that recieved threats or had assaults against them?
40 %
What type of structure is followed in prosecution offices?
Bureaucratice Structure
Define defense attorney.
The lawyer who advises, represents and acts for the defendant.
How back in histroy can the act of defense attorney be traced?
Ancient Rome, most early Roman were adovactes.
When did we see the increase in lawyers?
After the American Revolution
Which court case requires that all defendants should have counsel not just the wealthy?
Gideon v. Wainwright
True or False: Getting an attorney for a criminal defense case is cheap.
False; legal fees in a typical felony case may cost up to $25,000
When comparing the represntation and conclusion of the trial the wealthy and the less fortunate are equally balanced
False; wealthier people tend to have a better outcome with an attorney and a better conclusion of trial.
Define what a ad hoc assigned counsel?
A method for appointing legal assistance in which the judge chooses a defense attorney on case by case basis
Where was the first public defender program found?
Los Angeles in 1913
Which court case involved the Guantanamo Bay detainees
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
What are some ethicial deliemmas for a defense attorney?
Confidential confession, client perjury, defense receipt of physical evidence and problems wirh defendants prior record.
What are types of defense counsel?
Attorneys who are privately retained and attorneys who represent indigent defendants ( public defenders)
What is death row volunteering?
a phenomenon involving a death row inmate making a decision to stop appealing and let the sentence be carried out.
What percentage of criminal convictions are settled through a plea bargain
90 %
What is a plea bargain?
The process whereby thr accused and the prosecutor in a criminal case work out a mutally satisfactory disposition of the case subject to court approval.
what is a charge bargaining?
The prosector’s ability to negotiate with the defendant in terms of the charges that could be filed.
What is a sentence bargaining?
A defendant agreement to plead guily in exchange for a less serious sentence.
Who benefits from a plea bargain?
All parties of the courtroom benefit; the defendant, the prosecutor, the judge and the public defender.
Which amendment deals with speedy and public trial?
6th amendment
What court case was an example of the pressure for innocent defendants to plead guilty?
North Carolina v. Alford
Which state have experimented restricting the practice of plea bargaining?
Alaska
What happened in the court case Brady v. United States
it stated that we cannot hold that it is unconsitutional for the state to extend a benefit to a defendant who in turn extends a substantial benefit to the state.
What are the two types of pleas?
Plea of guilty or a plea of nolo contendere
Can the plea of nolo contendere be used as a plea of guilt?
No in a civil case
Are the rights to the plea bargaing the same during the bargaining and during the trial?
No
what is a ad hoc plea bargaining?
A term coined by one legal schlar that refers to some strange concessions defendants agree to make as part of the prosecutors decision to secure a guilty plea.
What are the five forms ad hoc bargin exist
- the court may impose an extraordinary condition of probation following a guilty plea 2. the defedant may be required to perdomr some act as a quid pro quo for a dismissal 3. court my impose an form of punishment 4. the state might offer a benefit for the plea 5. the defendant might be permitted to plea guilt to an unauthorized charge.
What must the defendant understand before pleaing guilty?
the nature of thecrime being charged or accused and thr possible sentence that are associated with the charges.
What is a a bench trial?
A trial which the judge is both the trier of law and the trier of fact; also called finder of law of finder of fact.
Who conquered England in 1066?
The Normans who set the stage fo modern juries
What court case extended the right to trial by jury in the state?
Duncan v. Louisiana in 1968
Which amendment gives the right to trial by jury?
The 6th amendment
Which court case dealt with the waiving the right to a jury trial?
Patton v. United States
What is the voir dire?
The selection process of a jury for a trial whereby the prosecution and defense question the jury panel inorder to seat a panel.
What is the appropriate size for a jury?
anywhere between 6-12 members
What court case decided that a 12 person jury is not a constitutional requirment?
Williams v. Florida
what court cases concluded that 5 member jury is unconsititutional?
Ballew v. Georgia
What are the main factors that affect joror decision making?
- Procedural chracterisitcis 2. Juror Chacteristics 3. Case Characterisitcs 4. Deliberation Characterisitics
What is liberation hypothesis?
The tendency for jurors to fall back on their own gut instincts when presented with evidence that is vague.
What is jury nullification?
The practice exercised by some juries of either ignoring or misapplying the law in a certain situation.
What court cased addressed the sixth amendment the right to a speedy trial?
United States v. Ewell
When does a trial begin?
When opening statements start.
What is special voir dire?
When media coverage of a crime is extensive and presumed to have influenced members of the jury panel.
What is gag order on trial participants?
Courts have experimented with gag orders on trial participants. This is an indirect method of reducing media coverage in trials.
What does the governement have to prove in a criminal case?
Proof Beyond a reasonable doubt
What has to be proven in a civil case ?
Perponderance of evidence
What is demonstrative evidence?
Any evidence that seeks to demonstrate a certain point.
What is direct evidence?
Evidence that proves a fact without the jury to infer from it.
What is circumstantial evidence?
Evidence that indirectly proves a fact.
what is cross-examination?
The opposing attorney questions the witness.
What happens before the jury goes and dilberates?
After closing arugements and any other motions are discussed the jury will proceed to providing the jury with instructions before they deliberate.
What is a hung jury?
A jury can not reach any verdict.
What are the four reason as why cases are treared differenly from one another?
- offense seriousness 2. celebrated cases 3. race/ ethnicity 4. offender’s sex.
What is the well-known reason why there is differential treatmen?
Because of race/ethnicity.
Who developed the five continuum of discrimination?
Sam Walker and his Colleagues
What are the five discrimination continuums?
- Systematic discrimination 2. Institutional 3. Contextual 4. Individual Acts 5. Pure Justice
What type of discrimination is found in the criminal justice system?
Systematic
When is it called, where there is not discrimination?
Pure Justice
What is the rush to judgement?
The rush to judgement is about striving to satisfy the demands of a public that wants its governement to be tough on crime.
Who introduced the wedding cake model?
Lawrence Friedman and Robert Percival
Since the wedding cake has been redefined how many layers are in the cake?
Four layers
What does the wedding cake illustrates?
Illustrates how the seriousness of an offense relates to the manner in which the case is processed by the criminal justice system.
Which is the smalles layer of the cake?
The top and it deals with celebrated cases, cases in which involve celebrities
what does the second layer of the cake represent?
Consist of Serious of Felonies, usually the cases result in going to trial
What does the third layer consist of?
Also felony but not as serious as the second layer.
What does the last layer intail?
Misdemeanors
What does the term race mean in the criminal justice system?
Generally refers to distinct phyical characteristics such as color of someone’s skin; in contrast the term ethnicity refers more to a shares national, religious, linguistic or cultural heritage.
True of False: Minorities are arrested more than white?
True because they make up the vast majority
What percentage of men in Califorinia are likely to be arrested by the age 30?
66%
True or False: Income of white tend to be higher than Blacks and hispanics
True 60 % higher than black and 35 % higher than Hispanics
What court case gave the right to police officers to stop and frisk without a warrant?
Terry v. Ohio
What ethnicity is convicted more than the other?
Whites
Even though white s are convicted more is it true that Blacks and Hispanics are often sent to prison more?
True
When did racial bias research begin?
1935
Who has the highest drug incatceration rate in 1996?
Blacks with 62.6 % and whites with 36.7 %
How many Americans are on Community Corrections?
More than 4 millon on probation and for parole 800,000.
Which amendment express the cruel and unusal punishement is unconstitutional?
8th Amendment
Which court case held that the death penalty was cruel?
Furman v. Georgia
What case was discussed when a defendant on death row sought habeas corpus relief by challenging his sentence on the grounds that all defendatsin Georgia were four times more likely to be sentenced to death for killing whites than A.A.
McCleskey v. Kemp
Does gender play a role in differential treatment
Yes women have historically been treated quite differently than males.
What does error of justice mean?
A term coined by Forst to describe the many types of mistakes the criminal justice system makes.
When did DNA testing enter the mainstream?
In 1980s
Why was DNA contested?
It was hotly contested because certain tests had higher margin of error than others.
What are some mistakes that are found in DNA testing?
Sample mixup, Sample contaminiation, DNA degradation, and Bad data analysis
What is the most common source of false matches?
Sample mixup, people often mix up the samples.
What is exoneration?
When a person is wrongfully convicted and later declared not guilty.
True or False: the rate of exoneration have decreased over the years?
False
What are some crimes where a person was exonerated from?
Murder, rape and sexual assualt.
True or False: Is it possible to estimate the number of people who were wrongly convicted?
False
What are some examples as to why someone will confess to a crime that they did not comit?
Duress, Coercion, Intoxication, Fear of violence, Mental Impairment. Misunderstanding of situation.
What are the five leading causes of exonerations?
- Eyewitness misidentification 2. Unvalidated/ Improper Forensics 3. False confessions 4. Informant/ snitches
What is the leading casuse of exonerations?
Eyewitness is the single greates cause of wrongful convictions nationwide.
True or false: Womens sentencing is more lenient for a man that is charged with the same crime?
True
What court case reinstated the death penalty
Gregg v. Georgia in 1976
What is the Presidential Commission of 1967
Determines whether an alleged offender should be charges, had the responsibility to present the governements case in court and the prosecutor had to often investigate and instigate the criminal process.
What happened in the court case Blackledge v. Perry
Prosecutor must always remain mindful and constitutional limitation on charginf decisions
