The court house and the people who work there
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Without clerks and probation officers, nail agents and bailiffs, courthouse could not function
The Court House
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Visitors or employees entering the courthouse are met by CSOs and screened as they passed through a metal detector
o Modern courthouses, are designed to transfer prisoners securely from holding facilities into courthouses using different entrances and res
The Courtroom
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Clerk of the court (calendar clerk) who controls the scheduling of cases and keeps the judge apprised of the relevant details of the case
o Stenographer, whose machine mysteriously makes a short hand record of the proceedings
o Bailiff who tries to mainta
Behind the Scenes
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Behind the scenes work the actors who provide essential support for courtroom activities
o Courts are paperwork bureaucracies
o Three distinct sets of court managers-clerks of court, chief judges, and court administrators
o The clerk of the court ( protho
Courthouse Security and Changing Technologies
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Metal detectors guarding courthouse doors are an ever present reminder of how threats of violence have altered American society
o Operating a court building today is a risky business
o Governmental buildings, courthouses included, represent important symb
Dynamics of the courthouse
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Decsions are not necessarily clear cut and that some leeway is available
o Courthouse watchers discover cooperation among judges, prosecutors, and defesne attorneys
o Assembly line justice explains why few cases receive individual treatment
o Discretion e
Assembly line Justice
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The crux of the problem is that there is great disparity between the number of cases and the number of judges
o The most commonly advanced reason that criminal courts do not administers justice according to the textbook image is assembly line justice
o Th
Discretion
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Discretion lies at the heart of the criminal justice process
o Discretion is exercised every time key decisions are made
o Grand juries have discretion over indictments
o Trial juries over conviction
o Judge over sentencing
o Discretion is best defined as
The Courtroom Work Group
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The same group of courthouse regulars assembles in the same courtroom, sits or stands in the same places, and performs the same tasks as the day before
o The best way to analyze the network of ongoing relationships amongst the courthouse actors is through
Shared Decision Making
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Courtroom work groups reflect shared decision making
o The hallmark of work group is regularity of behavior
Socialization
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A problem common to all organizations, courts included, is the need to break in new members, a process known as socialization
o Newcomers are taught not only the formal requirements of the job but also informal rules of behavior
o One of the most importan
Normal crimes
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Most cases fall into a limited number of categories
o Based on similarities among cases, members of the work group develop certain ideas about types of crimes and criminals
o The legal actors categorize crimes on the basis of the typical manner in which t
The problem of Delay
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A commonly mentioned problem affecting many of the nation's courts us that too many cases take too long to reach disposition
o The term delay suggests abnormal or unacceptable time lapses in the processing of cases
Consequences of delay
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justice delayed is justice denied"
o today judicial reformers and critics argue that case delay undermines the values and guarantees associated with the legal system
o most often cited negative consequences of delays is centered defendant, society, and
Law on the Books Approach to Court Delay
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Focuses on resources and procedures
o The problem of delay results from an imbalance between available resources and mounting caseloads
o A common response is to supplement resources- add judges, prosecutors, clerks
o Court procedures were poor predictors
Speedy Trial Law
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Are federal or state statues that specify time limits for bringing a case to trial after arrest
o These laws supplement the provisions of the U.S. Constitution and 35 stat constitutions that have speedy trial guarantees
o These provisions, however, apply
designed to protect defendant from suffering extensive delay
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federal law is designed to protect the interests of society
a speedy trial is viewed as an important objective irrespective of whether the defendants interests are in jeopardy
...
Limits of Speedy Trial Laws
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A major murder case or a large drug smuggling cases takes longer to prepare than an ordinary burglary prosecution
o Various studies find that speedy trial laws have had limited impact in speeding up the flow of cases through the state criminal court proce
Law In Action Approach To Court Delay
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Law on the books approaches to reducing court delay are ineffective because they ignore the dynamics of court house justice
o Delay is related not how many cases a court must oricess bu t to the choices that the actors make in how they process these cases
Legal Ethics
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Ethics refers to the study and analysis of what constitutes good or bad conduct
o Legal ethics represents a specific type of ethics
o First, it is an example of applied ethics, in which ethical principles are applied to specific issues
o Legal ethics is a