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Judicial Discretion
Judicial discretion is the power of the judiciary to make some legal decisions according to their discretion. Under the doctrine of the separation of powers, the ability of judges to exercise discretion is an aspect of judicial independence. Where appropriate, judicial discretion allows a judge to decide a legal case or matter within a range of possible decisions. However, where the exercise of discretion goes beyond constraints set down by legislation, by binding precedent, or by a constitution, the court may be abusing its discretion and undermining the rule of law. In that case, the decision of the court may be ''ultra vires'', and may sometimes be characterized as judicial activism. In 1824, US Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the following on this subject: Judicial power, as contradistinguished from the power of the laws, has no existence. Courts are the mere instruments of the law, and can will nothing. When they are said to exercise a discretion, it is a mere legal di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judiciary
The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law in legal cases. Definition The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets, defends, and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary can also be thought of as the mechanism for the resolution of disputes. Under the doctrine of the separation of powers, the judiciary generally does not make statutory law (which is the responsibility of the legislature) or enforce law (which is the responsibility of the executive), but rather interprets, defends, and applies the law to the facts of each case. However, in some countries the judiciary does make common law. In many jurisdictions the judicial branch has the power to change laws through the process of judicial review. Courts with judicial review power may annul the laws ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Three Strikes Law
In the United States, habitual offender laws (commonly referred to as three-strikes laws) have been implemented since at least 1952, and are part of the United States Justice Department's Anti-Violence Strategy. These laws require a person who is convicted of an offense and who has one or two other previous serious convictions to serve a mandatory life sentence in prison, with or without parole depending on the jurisdiction. The purpose of the laws is to drastically increase the punishment of those who continue to commit offenses after being convicted of one or two serious crimes. Twenty-eight states have some form of a "three-strikes" law. A person accused under such laws is referred to in a few states (notably Connecticut and Kansas) as a "persistent offender", while Missouri uses the unique term "prior and persistent offender". In most jurisdictions, only crimes at the felony level qualify as serious offenses. And it may turn on which felonies are defined as being serious, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criminal Law
Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law is established by statute, which is to say that the laws are enacted by a legislature. Criminal law includes the punishment and rehabilitation of people who violate such laws. Criminal law varies according to jurisdiction, and differs from civil law, where emphasis is more on dispute resolution and victim compensation, rather than on punishment or rehabilitation. Criminal procedure is a formalized official activity that authenticates the fact of commission of a crime and authorizes punitive or rehabilitative treatment of the offender. History The first civilizations generally did not distinguish between civil law and criminal law. The first written codes of law were designed by the Sumerians. Around 2100–2050 BC Ur-Nammu, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Close Case
In the law, a close case is generally defined as a ruling that could conceivably be decided in more than one way. Various scholars have attempted to articulate criteria for identifying close cases, and commentators have observed that reliance upon precedent established in close cases leads to the gradual expansion of legal doctrines. Identifying close cases Although some scholars have suggested that "a close case is in the eye of the beholder", other scholars have attempted to articulate specific criteria for identifying close cases. Maureen Armoor, for example, defines close cases as "the articulable outer limit of judicial discretion that most closely approximates the phenomenological experience of a sitting judge, in particular the dimension of discretion called into play when a judge is uncertain about an outcome". Ward Farnsworth, dean of the University of Texas School of Law, has suggested that close cases could be defined as either "cases close enough to provoke dissent" or c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aharon Barak
Aharon Barak ( he, אהרן ברק; born Erik Brick, 16 September 1936) is an Israeli lawyer and jurist who served as President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1995 to 2006. Prior to this, Barak served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1978 to 1995, and before this as Attorney General of Israel from 1975 to 1978. From 1974 to 1975, Barak was Dean of the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Barak is currently a law professor at Reichman University in Herzliya, and has taught at institutions including Yale Law School, Central European University, Georgetown University Law Center, and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Early life and education Aharon Barak was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, the only son of Zvi Brick, an attorney, and his wife Leah, a teacher. After the Nazi occupation of the city in 1941, the family spent three years in the Kovno ghetto. At the end of the war, after wandering through Hungary, Austria, and Italy, Barak and h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RSOL
The National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (NARSOL) is a national civil rights and justice reform organization headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina with operations based in Albuquerque, New Mexico and with affiliated organizations, advocates, and contacts in the vast majority of states. NARSOL and its affiliates are part of the growing movement to reform sexual offense laws in the United States. NARSOL asserts that while sex offender registries in the United States were originally well-intentioned and for the most heinous and dangerous sex offenders only, their reach has exponentially widened to include petty offenses such as teen sexting and consensual relations between young people. NARSOL has generated media attention by arranging national conferences in multiple cities including Boston, Albuquerque, Los Angeles Dallas, Atlanta, Cleveland, Houston, and Raleigh, and by being involved in numerous lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of sex offender regist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Women Against Registry
Women Against Registry (W.A.R.) is a U.S. non-profit organization, based in Arnold, Missouri, which works to obtain changes in laws affecting sex offenders. Most W.A.R. members are mothers, wives, girlfriends, and other family members of persons convicted of a sexual offense. W.A.R. advocates the abolition of sex offender registries altogether, but also wants officials to be more judicious in deciding who poses a risk, instead of the current policies applied to all offenders indiscriminately. Purpose The organization is focused on fostering awareness of the collateral damage suffered by the families of registrants. It asserts that while there is no evidence to support the effectiveness of public sex offender registries in deterring sexual crime, the registrants, their children, spouses, and other family members, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, suffer daily harassment, social exclusion, depression, anxiety, and even vigilante attacks; this contributes to the destruction ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Families Against Mandatory Minimums
Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) is an American nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1991 to challenge mandatory sentencing laws and advocate for criminal justice reform. FAMM promotes sentencing policies that give judges the discretion to distinguish between defendants and sentence them according to their role in the offense, the seriousness of the offense, and their potential for rehabilitation. FAMM's members include prisoners and their families, attorneys, judges, criminal justice experts, and concerned citizens. In 2018, ''The Washington Post'' described FAMM as "one of the leading organizations that have pushed for criminal justice changes." The organization's founder, Julie Stewart, started FAMM shortly after her brother was convicted of growing marijuana plants near his home and given a mandatory five year federal prison sentence. FAMM organized lobbying efforts in support of the First Step Act, a law which reforms the U.S. federal prison system and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lesser Included Offense
In criminal law, a lesser included offense is a crime for which all of the elements necessary to impose liability are also elements found in a more serious crime. It is also used in non-criminal violations of law, such as certain classes of traffic offenses. For example, the common law crime of larceny requires the taking and carrying away of tangible property from another person, with the intent of permanently depriving the owner of that property. Robbery, under the common law, requires all of the same elements and also the use of force or intimidation to accomplish the taking. Therefore, larceny is a lesser included offense in the offense of robbery, as every robbery includes a larcenous act as part of the crime. Assault is also a lesser included offense of robbery, just as false imprisonment is usually a lesser included offense of kidnapping. However, an offense will not be a lesser included offense if it carries a maximum penalty greater than that carried by the charged ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indictment
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of an indictable offence, an offence that requires an indictment. Australia Section 80 of the Constitution of Australia provides that "the trial on indictment of any offence against any law of the Commonwealth shall be by jury". The High Court of Australia has consistently used a narrow interpretation of this clause, allowing the Parliament of Australia to define which offences proceed on indictment rather than conferring a universal right to a jury trial. Section 4G of the ''Crimes Act 1914'' provides that "offences against a law of the Commonwealth punishable by imprisonment for a period exceeding 12 months are indictable offences, unless the contrary intention appears". Canada A direct indictment is one in which the case is sent directl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prosecutorial Discretion
In common law, the principle of prosecutorial discretion allows public prosecutors a wide lattitude to decide whether or not to charge a person for a crime, and which charges to file. A similar principle in continental law countries is called the principle of opportunity. The principle of opportunity is encoded in law in The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Slovenia and France. Some similar provisions exist in Belgian law and in Estonian law. By contrast, in the countries that do not recognise the principle of opportunity, compulsory prosecution applies, and the cancellation of the prosecution of a known felony can itself be considered a felony. By country United States In the United States federal system, the prosecutor has wide latitude in determining when, who, how, and even whether to prosecute for apparent violations of federal criminal law. The prosecutor's broad discretion in such areas as initiating or forgoing prosecutions, selecting or recommending specific charges, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prosecutor
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial against an individual accused of breaking the law. Typically, the prosecutor represents the state or the government in the case brought against the accused person. Prosecutor as a legal professional Prosecutors are typically lawyers who possess a law degree, and are recognised as suitable legal professionals by the court in which they are acting. This may mean they have been admitted to the bar, or obtained a comparable qualification where available - such as solicitor advocates in England and Wales. They become involved in a criminal case once a suspect has been identified and charges need to be filed. They are employed by an office of the government, with safeguards in place to ensure such an office can successfully pursue the pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
