Bail makes it possible for the accused to be released until a trial determines guilt or innocence. The money or property is returned when the accused appears for trial. However, if the judge sets a very high bail, it may be impossible for the accused to produce the needed sum. Setting excessive bail has the same effect as refusing to set bail.
The more serious the crime, the higher the bail that is likely to be demanded from the accused person. In murder cases, the accused is usually held without bail because the crime is so serious. Persons found guilty of certain offenses are sometimes ordered to pay a fine or serve a jail term.
In some cases, a fine is imposed in addition to a jail term. The Eighth Amendment requires that the fine imposed must be reasonable since inability to pay can lead to a jail term. The Eighth Amendment also makes cruel and unusual punishments illegal. Whippings, branding, and other forms of punishment are considered cruel and unusual. There are other examples. Perhaps a prisoner is held in solitary confinement for a very long time, or is kept on bread and water for a long period of time.
Such punishments might be considered cruel and unusual. Guilty person have rights under our system of law. The Ninth Amendment states:. This means that the rights listed in the Constitution are not the only rights people have.
The right to engage in political activity has been cited as being protected by this amendment. Otherwise, the Ninth Amendment has not played an important part in American history.
However, it stands as an example of how the American people in wanted to secure future rights. The Constitution lists the powers delegated to the federal government. It also lists the powers denied to the federal government and the state governments. However, the Constitution does not list the powers delegated to the state governments.
The Tenth Amendment provides for state powers without specifically listing those powers. Kasim Davey was jailed for being in contempt of court when he posted this online about his jury service:.
At a time when sexual grooming and assault is very much a public issue, not to mention tensions about immigration, is it fair to assume that a juror will start a case completely open-minded about the person sat in front of them?
Judges are at the end of the day still human, and may hold the same old-fashioned or illogical beliefs as anyone else — whether they realise it or not.
They may be trained to check that they are not doing this, but prejudice can run deeply. A strong example of how difficult it might be to find a representative jury, or even to have a cohesive enough society to have a jury system at all, is that of South Africa. Juries were abolished in because the all-white jury system was seen to be prejudicial towards black people, but a mixed race jury would have been a political impossibility.
Where a society is particularly divided, then, a fair jury might well be highly unlikely in reality. So perhaps in those countries where it is possible to organise relatively unbiased and cohesive juries we should allow them, if only to make the point that whatever differences there might be between members of society we can come together to dispense justice. It makes the conviction really mean something because the people are responsible for the conviction, rather than simply the State.
Even if we say that it is good for everyone to play a part in dispensing justice, there are always going to be questions about whether a jury will secure the fairest possible trial. This is a natural concern given that jury duty is compulsory, cases can go on for weeks or even months, and the law can be horrendously complicated. However much the barristers and judge may try to simplify things for juries, in the end it is the case that many complex trials will last a long time and deal with highly technical issues of fact and law.
There is a reason you have to undergo so much training to be a barrister or judge! The jury that was dismissed in the Vicky Pryce case for having an inadequate understanding of the issues was roundly mocked as being too stupid to understand the issues at stake. However there are very definitely two different elements to consider. Firstly, are juries going to be able to understand the process and be able to engage with the information presented to them?
The jury is asked to determine questions of fact whereas the judge deals with questions of law, so the idea is that the jury only needs to understand the particular issues presented to them and on which they ought to be able to come to a decision. That may be taken simply as a sign that the legal system is too complex though; would we rather just leave justice to the middle class?
The second issues is however whether jurors want to engage fully in the process — they might be bored, or cross at having to miss work, or simply not care about real justice and are instead willing to let their prejudices decide their opinion before they begin. Firstly, this is why we have 12 jurors. If a couple of them are willing to spend a fraud trial doodling, then they will hopefully at least have the good grace to agree with the conclusion reached by their fellow jurors.
Secondly, in fact jurors will on the whole get very involved in the issues at stake. Right to a Public Trial. The right to a public trial is not absolute. In the case of Sheppard v. Maxwell , involving the murder of the wife of Dr.
Sam Sheppard , a popular high-profile neurosurgeon, the Supreme Court held that public access to trials can be restricted if, in the opinion of the trial judge,excess publicity might harm the defendant's right to a fair trial. Right to an Impartial Jury. During the jury selection process, lawyers for both sides are allowed to question potential jurors to determine whether they harbor any bias for or against the defendant. Should the trial judge determine the challenge to be valid, the potential juror will be dismissed.
Colorado , the Supreme Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment requires criminal courts to investigate all claims by defendants that their jury's guilty verdict was based on racial bias. Right to Proper Trial Venue. Over time, the courts have interpreted this to mean that selected jurors must reside in the same state in which the crime was committed and charges were filed. In the case of Beavers v. Henkel , the Supreme Court ruled that the location where the alleged crime took place determines the location of the trial.
In cases where the crime may have occurred in multiple states or judicial districts, the trial may be held in any of them. In rare cases of crimes that take place outside the United States, like crimes at sea, the U.
Congress may set the location of the trial. As the delegates to the Constitutional Convention sat down to craft the Constitution in the spring of , the U. Without professional police forces, ordinary untrained citizens served in loosely defined roles as sheriffs, constables, or night watchmen. It was almost always up to victims themselves to charge and prosecute criminal offenders. Lacking an organized government prosecutorial process, trials often devolved into shouting matches, with both victims and defendants representing themselves.
As a result, trials involving even the most serious crimes lasted only minutes or hours instead of days or weeks. Juries of the day were made up of twelve ordinary citizens — typically all men — who often knew the victim, defendant, or both, as well as the details of the crime involved. In many cases, most of the jurors had already formed opinions of guilt or innocence and were unlikely to be swayed by evidence or testimony. While they were informed of which crimes were punishable by the death penalty, jurors received few if any instructions from judges.
It was in this chaotic scenario that the framers of the Sixth Amendment sought to ensure that the processes of the American criminal justice system were conducted impartially and in the best interest of the community, while also protecting the rights of both the accused and victims.
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