From doing the crime to doing time: How just is our criminal justice system?
Several weeks have passed since your friends were arrested and booked on suspicion of shoplifting. With the help of a lawyer, they secured bail and spent only one night in jail. During the pretrial phase, however, a judge determined that there was enough evidence to put them on trial. Because the value of the shoplifted goods exceeded $950, they have been charged with grand theft. Now the day has arrived when they must appear in court to defend themselves before a judge and jury.
The Sixth Amendment forms the basis of a suspect’s constitutional right to a fair and impartial trial. The first phrase of this amendment says that the “accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial. ”But what do these words mean in practice? For example, what constitutes a “speedy trial"?
The Supreme Court has shed some light on this question. In 1972, the Court reviewed a case in which a suspect’s trial was delayed 16 times before he was finally tried and convicted. Because the defendant had not objected to the first 11 delays, the Supreme Court upheld his conviction. However, the Court listed the following four factors to consider in deciding whether a trial has been “speedy":
Congress has set a limit of 100 days after an arrest for a federal case to be brought to trial. If this time limit is not met, a case may be dismissed. Defendants have been known to waive this right, however, to give their attorneys more time to prepare or to accommodate the needs of key witnesses. Some states have followed federal guidelines and set their own limits under which a case must be tried.
The “public ”part of the “speedy and public ”clause has also been subject to interpretation. The framers of the Sixth Amendment believed that it was important to keep trials public in order to ensure a fair judgment for the defendant. They also assumed that society would benefit from seeing justice served.
But what happens when holding a public trial might actually hurt the defendant? In certain cases, for example, the presence of the news media at a trial could affect public opinion and influence the jury. In such cases, judges may decide to change the location of a trial or to isolate the jury.
Although television cameras are now allowed at many trials, judges have been known to ban cameras from the courtroom on the grounds that they could distort the justice process. The Supreme Court has determined that such bans do not violate the Sixth Amendment.
Inevitably, the defendant’s right to a fair trial sometimes conflicts with the public’s desire for access to trial proceedings. In 1979, the Supreme Court concluded in the case of Gannett Co. v. DePasquale that the public does not necessarily have the right to attend all trials. However, a year later, in Richmond Newspapers Inc. v. Virginia, the Court decided that, with the exception of cases involving national security, the public’s right to view trials should be maintained if at all possible.
Trial by jury is one of the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution. In fact, it is the only right that is specified both in the main body of the Constitution and in the Bill of Rights. The Sixth Amendment, however, goes beyond simply guaranteeing the right to a trial by jury. It also mandates that the jury be impartial, or unbiased, and made up of members of the local community.
Traditionally, juries have consisted of 12 jurors who must reach a unanimous verdict for a case to be decided. Federal courts still uphold those standards. The Supreme Court has held, however, that 12 jurors are not essential to decide a case, as long as there are enough members to facilitate group deliberation. The need for a unanimous verdict has also come into question. In the 1972 case of Apodaca v. Oregon, the Court held that verdicts in non-death penalty cases do not need to be unanimous. However, a Court decision in 1979 made it a requirement for smaller, six-member juries to reach a unanimous verdict.
Most important, the Sixth Amendment requires that juries be impartial. This requirement mainly affects the way in which potential jurors are chosen. Possible jurors are usually selected from a master list compiled from various sources. The idea is to draw from a pool of people who represent a cross-section of the community. In Hernandez v. Texas (1953), the Supreme Court also required that racial groups cannot be excluded from jury selection in order to be consistent with the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment. Names are then drawn at random from the master list, and those selected receive a jury summons.
During a process known as voir dire, the lawyers and judge in a case question potential jurors to determine whether there is any reason to disqualify them. A lawyer may challenge a juror “for cause ”by stating a specific objection. For example, a prosecutor might challenge a juror on a murder case if that person is opposed to the death penalty. If the judge approves the challenge, the juror is disqualified.
Lawyers may also exclude jurors based on a peremptory challenge. This is a challenge that is given without reason but that is usually based on a perceived bias in the jury candidate. Lawyers are generally granted a limited number of peremptory challenges in each case.
Until the 1980s, lawyers could use peremptory challenges whenever they chose, with no restrictions. In the 1986 case of Batson v. Kentucky, however, the Supreme Court concluded that this unrestricted process violated the Constitution. The case involved a black defendant who had been convicted of burglary. In the original trial, the prosecuting attorney used his peremptory challenges to exclude four black jurors, leaving an all-white jury to decide the case.
The Court held that the prosecutor’s actions violated the Sixth and Fourteenth amendments. The Court said that if prosecutors try to exclude jurors based solely on race, they may be asked to explain their reasons. They may even be challenged by the defendant and ordered to change their approach. In 1992, the Court later extended these rules to defense attorneys. Two years later, it prohibited peremptory challenges based on gender.
The last right guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, the right to an attorney, is also essential to the judicial process. In fact, the Supreme Court has noted that the right to legal counsel is the most pervasive of a defendant’s rights, because it “affects his ability to assert any other rights.”
Because defendants must have access to legal counsel, the Supreme Court has said that they have the right to a free, court-appointed lawyer if they cannot afford to hire one. That right was upheld in the 1963 case of Gideon v. Wainwright.
A year later, the Supreme Court reinforced the legal right to an attorney in Escobedo v. Illinois. Danny Escobedo, the defendant in the original case, had been arrested and questioned by police in connection with a murder. During this questioning, police repeatedly denied Escobedo’s requests to speak to a lawyer. He later confessed to the murder and was convicted.
In its decision, the Supreme Court found that the police had violated Escobedo’s Sixth Amendment right to an attorney. This right applies, said the Court, when “a police investigation is no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime but has begun to focus on a particular suspect in police custody. ”This case produced the “Escobedo rule, ”an application of the exclusionary rule that disallows evidence gained from a confession made without an attorney present.
In 1984, the Court considered the question of what constitutes effective legal counsel in the case of Strickland v. Washington. This case centered on a defendant who had been sentenced to death in a murder case. The defendant had confessed to the crime but charged that his lawyer had violated his rights by not providing enough evidence in his case to avoid the death sentence.
In its decision, the Court agreed that defendants are entitled to “reasonably effective assistance ”of counsel. To claim ineffective counsel, defendants must show that errors made by the attorney were sufficient to prevent a fair trial. In effect, defendants must prove that more competent counsel could have produced a different outcome. In this particular case, however, the Court upheld the man’s conviction on the grounds that additional evidence would not have affected the outcome.
The burden of proof in a trial rests with the prosecution. It is the government’s job to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. Prosecutors seek to do this by presenting both direct and circumstantial evidence. In addition, prosecutors must obey the rules of evidence when presenting their case.
In general, evidence must satisfy two main rules to be admissible. First, it must be relevant. This means there must be a valid reason to introduce it. If a defendant is accused of murder, evidence that he is diabetic is probably not relevant. Second, evidence must be competent. In other words, it must meet certain standards of reliability. The testimony of a very young child might not be considered competent, for example, because the child might not be a reliable eyewitness.
The judge in a case has the final say on whether evidence is admissible. The judge’s role is to make sure that both the defense and the prosecution follow the law and that justice is served. Either side can appeal a judge’s decision, however, if they believe the judge made legal errors.
One of the biggest decisions a defense attorney must make is whether to have the defendant testify. The Fifth Amendment protects a defendant’s right not to testify. This is to protect the accused from self-incrimination. Still, jurors are often curious about a defendant’s side of the story and may wonder why someone would choose not to take the witness stand.
The Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination, however, does not prohibit the state from requiring a defendant to submit evidence such as fingerprints, handwriting samples, and DNA samples. This type of evidence is called physical evidence. The Court has said that the use of physical evidence is permissible to obtain a conviction.
After both the prosecution and the defense attorney have presented their final arguments, the case is handed over to the jury. The jury then retires to the jury room to deliberate behind closed doors.
The first thing members of a jury typically do is choose a foreman to act as chairperson. They then discuss all aspects of the case, including court procedures, testimony, and evidence. Jurors may also request additional information from the judge if they are uncertain about anything. Following these procedures, most juries are able to reach a verdict quickly, often in less than two hours.
To reach a guilty verdict, jurors must agree that the defendant is guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, of the crime in question. Depending on the laws involved’ the jury may have the option of choosing to convict the accused of a lesser offense. Once the jurors have agreed on a verdict, they inform the judge and return to the courtroom. The jury foreman then announces the verdict in court.
If judged guilty, the defendant is usually taken into custody to await punishment. Following an acquittal, or “not guilty ”verdict, however, the defendant leaves the courtroom a free person and the case is officially over. The protection of double jeopardy afforded by the Fifth Amendment prevents a person from being tried again for the same crime.
As mentioned previously, juries are usually required to reach a unanimous verdict. If they fail to do so, the result is a hung jury. In such cases, the judge dismisses the jurors. The prosecutor then has the option of retrying the case with a new jury.