Colonial Courts
o Diversity was the hallmark of the colonies
- Each colony modifying its court system according to variations in local customs, different religious practices, and patterns of commercial trade
o Northern colonies, biblical codes were often adopted
o In the
Early American Courts
o Former colonists distrusted lawyers and harbored misgivings about English common law
o State legislatures often responded to unpopular court decisions by removing some judges or abolishing specific courts all together
o A major source of political confl
Trail courts and limited jurisdiction
o Sometimes referred to as inferior courts or lower courts
o Consistute 85 percent of all judicial bodies in the U.S.
o Lower courts decide a restricted range of cases
o Created by city or county governments and therefore are not part of the state judicia
Cases in the lower courts
o More than 70 million cases a eyar, most are traffic cases
o These are the courts which the average citizen is most likely to come in contact with
o Lower court judges authorize search warrants
o Responsible for handling the early stages of felony crimin
Misdemeanor
o is a crime punishable by a fine, imprisonment for a period of less than one year
Ordinances
o Ordinances are laws passed by a local governing body such as a city council
o They apply to the locality and any fine that is assessed for violations goes to the local government, not the state
o Noncriminal, easier to prosecute
Traffic Offenses
o Refers to a group of offenses involving self propelled motor vehciles
o Rang from parking violations to improper equipment
o Speeding is the most common traffic offense followed by driving without a licsense
o New jersey leads the nation with more than
Small claims civil cases
o In most rural areas, the lower courts are collectively called justice of the peace courts
o Developed as w ay to dispense simple and speedy justice fpr minor civil and criminal cases
o Many JPs are locally elected officials or mayors of small towns who
Lack of resources
o Rural courts receive less federal money and have lower tax base than larger countries
o The defense pool is limited because few attorneys practice law
Familiarity
o In rural areas contacts are invariably one on one
o Rural courts place greater emphahasis on informal mechansisms os social control
o The members of the courtroom work group are friend, some related
o Defendants who are not part of the community may be
Municipal Courts
o The urban counterparts of the justice peace courts
o The municipal courts more closely resemble a bureaucracy geared to mass processing of cases
o Municipal court judges often open court by advising defendants of their constitutional rights as a group
o
Sentencing in the lower courts
o the lower courts are more sentencing institutions
o the punishments imposed by lower court judges include many of the found in the major trial courts- fines, probation, and jail
o in misdeamanor courts judges can choose alternative sanctions, including
Problems in the lower court
o Few defendants are represented by an attorney
o Rather than the rules of courtroom procedure, informality predominates
Inadequate financing
Lower courts are funded locally
Lack funds to staff and equip their courts adequately
Inadequate facilities
Often too crowded and noisy
No judegs bench or jury box
Detrimental to the attitudes of the defendant, prosecutor, and everyone else
Lax Procedures
Do not have written rules for the conduct cases
Conventional book keeping records are often ignored
Unbalanced Caseloads
Have huge backlogs
No way to equalize the work load
Community Justice
o The central target of these community justice efforts is minor disputes between parties in ongoing relationships
o Private disagreements between friends, neighbors, and significant others are the steady diet of the police and the lower courts
o The goal
Alternative Dispute Resolution
o Seeks to settle disputes by less adversarial means than the traditional legal process
o ADR programs function as alternatives to going to court
o Efforts such as attribution and mediation, most often focus on civil matters
Community courts
o Community mediation programs, as they have sometimes been called, are government sponsored
o These programs receive the bulk of their cases as referrals from criminal justice agencies
o The dominant goal is to improve the justice system by removing mino
Trail Courts of general jurisdiction: Major trail courts
o The term general jurisdiction means that these courts have the legal authority to decide all matters not specifically delegated to lower courts
o The specific division of jurisdiction between the lower courts and the major trial courts is specified by l
Immediate courts of Appeals
o Must hear all the properly filed appeals
o A decision by the states intermediate appellate court is the final one for most cases
o The ICA handle the bulk of the case load in the appellate system
o Engage primarily in error correction
o They review tria
State High Courts of Last Resort
o The entire court participates in deciding each case
o All state high courts of last resort have limited amount of original jurisdiction in dealing with matters such a disciplining lawyers and judges
o In states without an intermediate court of appeals,
Court unification
o Unified court systems is to shift judicial administration from local control to centralized management
o Coherent hierarchy with authority concentrated in the state capital
o 5 general principles
Simplified Court Structure
with a simple, uniform court structure for the entire state. A three tier system
Centralized Administration
with the state high court of last resort, working through court administrators, providing leadership. A centralized state office would supervise the work of judicial and non-judicial personnel
Centralized Rule Making
state high courts of last resort should have power to adopt uniform rules to be followed by all courts in the state. Procedures for disciplining errant attorneys and time standards for disposing of cases. Rule making would shift control from legislature t
Centralized Judicial Budgeting
give state judicial administrator the authority to prepare a single budget for the entire state judiciary and send it directly to the legislature. The governor's power to recommend a judicial budget would be eliminated.
Statewide Financing
although courts are mandated by state law, they are often financed in whole or in part by local governments. They end up with less than adequate local financing
Therapeutic Jurisprudence Five essential elements
Immediate intervention
Nonadversarial adjudication
Hands on judicial involvement
Treatment programs with clear rules and structured goals
A team approach that brings together the judge, prosecutors, defense counsel.
Drug courts, domestic violence courts,
Drug Courts
o Arrests for drug related violations represent the largest single category of police activity, particularly in the nations major urban areas
o Rather than viewing the defendants as criminals, they saw them as persons with an addiction problem
o Drug cour
Domestic Violence Courts
o the emphasis is on integration.
o These courts respond to a historical problem in the court system, which required victims and their families to appear in different courts before multiple judges.
o By removing domestic violence cases from mixed docket c
Mental Health Courts
o Overrepresented in the criminal justice system
o Not only do mentally ill defendants present special security risks in courts and jails, but they are also more likely to repeatedly recycle through the cj system