The U.S. system is a common law system that relies heavily on precedent for formal judgments. In our common law system, court decisions in previous court proceedings are extremely important to the court`s decision on the pending case, even if it is a statute. With decades of experience in legal and litigation practice in a variety of criminal and civil matters, Thomas L. Stringer has the skills, knowledge and resources to represent clients comprehensively, no matter how difficult the situation. You have the right to the assistance of a lawyer at all stages of the criminal proceedings AND IT IS IMPORTANT THAT THE ACCUSED CONTACTS HIS LAWYER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. A common mistake of the accused is the feeling that the whole arrest is just a mistake and that if he can only explain the situation to the police or an official, the whole matter will be “forgotten”. Don`t make that mistake. Get legal advice as soon as possible and don`t voluntarily provide information until you`ve received good legal advice.
As they say in the movies, anything you say can and will be used against you, and once stopped, it`s very rare for a case to be closed before a full hearing once the booking is made. The vast majority of criminal and civil cases in the United States are handled by the massive state justice system. Each state divides its courts into a three-tier structure: trial courts, appellate courts, and state supreme courts. Courts of first instance include district courts (limited jurisdiction; typical cases include traffic courts, misdemeanors and preliminary criminal hearings), district courts (extended jurisdiction; Cases may involve family law, inheritance law, and violations of city ordinances) and state trial courts (highest court; Cases may involve inheritance law, family law, property disputes and serious crimes). Americans are extremely proud and sometimes angry with their complex, costly and powerful criminal justice system, which goes to great lengths to protect the individual rights of the accused. Most people rightly consider that the system is indirectly aimed at guaranteeing human rights, which is loaded with many safeguards, the most important of which is the requirement that the person be presumed innocent until the government meets the highest burden of proof known in U.S. law: proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to moral certainty. In addition, most U.S.
criminal law systems also require a unanimous jury verdict to convict. No legal system in the world imposes such an enormous burden on the state before it can imprison or punish a citizen accused of a crime. Given the heavy burden of proof of the prosecutor, the accused`s communication rights that do not need to be reciprocal, the requirement for a unanimous verdict, the right to a speedy public trial, and even the fact that the state pays an independent lawyer if the accused cannot afford one, it seems that no one in such a system is ever convicted of a crime. Beyond the three main components, the state and federal criminal justice levels of the United States are organized into a hierarchy of different departments and agencies. State systems typically consist of an attorney general`s office, public safety departments, state police and highway patrol, as well as college campus and Capitol police. The federal system includes the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and a number of federal agencies and law enforcement groups that report to these departments (e.g., the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection). Second, the federal judicial system is based on a system of “jurisdiction,” that is, the geographical distribution of courts at certain levels. For example, while there is only one Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal is divided into 13 counties and there are 94 district courts.
In addition, each state judicial system has its own “jurisdiction”. As already mentioned, the jurisdiction in which a case has been raised determines which judicial decisions constitute binding precedents. See case presentations from a new perspective with technology-driven sanctions software. Search for many LexisNexis resources without selecting sources or using search commands. Here are some of the fundamental principles that make up the U.S. legal system. Each of these chapters is discussed in more detail in this chapter and in other chapters of this book. They are summarized below to give the reader an overview of some of the fundamental principles of American common law. The principle that defines the common law is the requirement that courts follow the decisions of the superior courts of the same jurisdiction.
From this legacy of stare decisis, a reasonably predictable and coherent body of law emerged. We have the right to request a hearing to reduce the filing if the filing has been set too high.
