Going into my study, I had almost no idea what happened in the steps of a criminal conviction, trial, and everything else that goes along with it, except the very minimal basics. For this research assessment, I decided to dive into the details that I am ready to starting perfecting.
There is a variety of different ways to deal with criminal behavior. Depending on where you are, the district, federal, and local governments each have their own codes. The Title 18 of U.S. Code outlines all federal crimes, and the federal prosecutions follow the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which was written by the Supreme Court and passed by Congress. Each individual state follows their own criminal code. Many states have codes that are very similar to the federal one, and they can even provide more protections, but they are not allowed to provide less. Law enforcement is very much intertwined with the way the court functions and even how the trial plays out. This initially surprised me, but after more and more research on constitutional law, the Fourth (protection against unreasonable search and seizures, including warrants), Fifth and Sixth Amendments (ensure that law enforcement explains the rights to every defendant) have all shown that relationship.
However, what first surprised me the most was the lengthy pretrial procedure. A lot of this plays into the Sixth Amendment which states that the defendant has a right to speedy and fair trial. I learned that “speedy” has actually been defined as the trial starting within 70 days of the prosecutor filing the indictment. That was very interesting to me, because I had no idea that there was an actual limit, and previously believed that the process could be dragged out for a lot longer. There is also the guarantee of an impartial jury, which occurs through a process known as voir dire. The jury is actually much more complex than I had realized. Depending on the situation, a judge or the attorneys ask the jury a variety of questions to make sure they will not have bias when listening to a case. However, either side can exercise a peremptory challenge on any of the jurors, which means they will be removed from the jury, with no questions asked. However, this to me seemed like a system that could easily be abused for the benefit of one side over the other, and would probably extend the time it takes to decide on a jury by much longer. After further reading, I discovered this other process that can follow and actually challenge the peremptory challenge, known as prima facie argument. This comes from the opponent side stating that the challenge was used to discriminate based on ethnicity, race, or gender. It also surprised me to learn about how the term “prima facie” is across much more than just this single application, and can be applied in many other situations. That is room for further research!
After the pretrial procedure, obviously what follows is the trial. This has always seemed to me like the most exciting and lively part of a criminal procedure. Prior to my research, I had an idea that the prosecution had to prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Bail, arraignment, preliminary hearing (must meet burden of persuasion), pretrial hearing (passing of motions) and THEN the trial will proceed. There is so much to this that I had no idea even existed! The level I researched it was a general understanding of only the federal level, which like previously mentioned, varies from state to state. I will further my research by investigating the exact criminal codes (Title 3) for Texas.
