Criminal Cases: The O. J. Simpson Case

The principle in law that one is innocent until proven guilty has created much discourse. There are those who feel that the moment that one is arrested, there is reasonable belief that they committed the crime. However, there are those who feel that just as the principle states, one is, and should be taken as a victim and the outcome could be either way: guilty or not guilty. In fact, this argument is supported by the many cases of malicious prosecutions and mistaken identities.

In criminal court, the government files a case against someone for committing a crime. The person accused of committing the crime is called the defendant. The government must prove that the defendant is guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” which is a very high standard. If the defendant is found guilty, then he or she may go to jail or prison.(Code, 1993) Branches There are five main components of the criminal justice system: prosecution, defense attorneys, law enforcement, courts, and corrections.

What is capital punishment? Why has it been such a controversial topic in the United States? According to the legal dictionary, capital punishment is a punishment in the criminal justice system that sentence serious offender to death based off of their crimes committed. [ ] Capital punishment is imposed on criminals to deter crime.[arguments for] Not only to deter crime but have some form of retribution (justice) for the criminal

A miscarriage of justice is when a person is convicted and punished for a crime they did not commit. This book displays many strengths. Some of the strengths found in this

Instead the focus was on what was facilitating it-such as criminogenic environments due to economic hardship, broken homes, and potential mental conflicts. Thus the Progressive period was more interested in the government treating rather than judging the offender, and felt that keeping one incarcerated made it impossible to rehabilitate them into normal society. Consequently, probation, parole, and indeterminate sentencing became solutions to crime. The medical model views crime as being caused by underlying psychological factors. This placed a strong reliance on psychological remedies for crime, including psychological analysis, diagnosis, and treatment of the root causes of criminal behavior similar to the treatment of a patient with a mental illness.

Although the actus reus and the mens rea are components of all crimes, the mens rea only becomes relevant when the conduct in question contains some level of ambiguity. The need to prove both the actus reus and the mens rea is applicable to other crimes besides rape. The most regularly used example is the crime of trespass; it is against the law to trespass onto another’s property, but a person cannot be convicted if they did not know they were trespassing (i.e. if private property was not clearly

Wrongful convictions have plagued the world throughout history. When crimes are committed the public feels ascertain a way about the situation. Depending on the severity of the issues, the last thing the public wants is for the criminals to get away. The pressure intensifies to catch some one for the crime.

Criminal law covers the area of crimes and is there to maintain law and order. A crime refers to a breach of one or more rule of law. The society believes that individuals should be held responsible for their actions, especially when those actions constitutes a crime that would endanger the safety of today’s society. In the eye of the law, in order to paint an individual as guilty, the prosecution must prove that the defendant committed an actus reus had mens rea at the same time. Actus reus refers to a guilty act and mens rea means a guilty state of mind.

E CRIMINAL LIABILITY 3.0 INTRODUCTION A corporation is not a natural person and only acts through its officers; if what the officers did is criminal in nature, then only the corporation is liable to be prosecuted. Corporations, as legal persons, gain many benefits similar to natural persons but they continue to be able to hide behind complex corporate structures to evade the liability of natural persons under the criminal law. Corporations continue to cause severe injury to individuals, groups and the natural environment through their actions. Their ability to abuse power and evade criminal liability reveals their current privileged position in comparison to individuals.

Evidence is typically introduced to a judge or a jury to prove a point or element in a case. In criminal law, evidence is used to prove a defendant 's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. However, before evidence can even be used in a criminal case, it must be considered “admissible”.

The Criminal Justice System is the system of law enforcement that is directly involved in apprehending, prosecuting, defending, sentencing and punishes those who is suspected or convicted of criminal offenses. The two main systems are the State and Federal: The state criminal justice system handle crime committed within their state boundaries while the Federal criminal justice system handles crimes committed on federal property or in several states; Federal crimes compared to state crimes are more severe and the jail times are longer. The Jury plays a central role in the justice system, in a trial the jury hears evidence, testimonies, and determines whether it satisfies the crime.

Cases for civil suits to gain adequate compensation that the injured parties file are often strengthened when the driver is convicted first in criminal court of DUI or related charges. For this reason and others, the burden of proof is higher with cases in criminal court than with ones in civil court since the criminal defendant 's case must be proven beyond all doubt. When this results in a guilty verdict, it presents believable evidence that the defendant was indeed negligent when injured parties file a civil

1. Aggravating and mitigating factors weigh on what a person’s sentence will be. Aggravators and mitigators are only factored in after the person has been found guilty. For a prosecutor to be able to try and get the death penalty for a person, the criminal must have committed a crime that involved at least one aggravating factor. Aggravating factors include: rape, arson, child molesting, criminal gang activity, and many more.

During the 18th century, Hammurabi conquered the four quarters of the world, made great the Kingdom of Babylon. After he conquered those lands, he wrote set of laws to bound every other citizen in his territory under that law where no other person would be under-represented. He wrote that code to bring righteousness to the land and planned to bring the well-being of the oppressed. It is even mentioned that Hammurabi feared gods and wrote that code to please them. However, Hammurabi Law Code dealt with different aspects of society ranging from the health care system to family life, from criminal justice to commercialization of businesses and rights of women; law structures were clarified and well designed.

At the crime scene the police discovered a glove, a knife, foot prints, blood evidence, even hair evidence. Some of Simpson’s hairs were discovered on Ronald’s shirt. A left handed glove was found outside of Nicole’s house and the other part of the glove was found at Simpson’s residence. William Bodziak, an FBI shoe print specialist, discovered that size 12 shoe prints were left behind. Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran reported that he thinks the murders were done using a single-edged knife.