CH3: Criminal Justice and the Rule of Law

legal responsibility

The accountability of an individual for a crime because of the perpetrator’s actions and the circumstances of the illegal act.

civil law

Law regulating the relationships between or among individuals, usually involving property, contracts, or business disputes.

substantive criminal law

Law that defines acts that are subject to punishment and specifies the punishments for such offenses.

procedural criminal law

Law defining the procedures that criminal justice officials must follow in enforcement, adjudication, and corrections

felonies

Serious crimes usually carrying a penalty of death or of incarceration for more than
one year in prison.

misdemeanors

Offenses less serious than felonies
and usually punishable by incarceration of no more than one year in jail, or by probation or intermediate sanctions.

civil infractions

Minor offenses that are typically punishable by small fines and produce no criminal record for the offender.

inchoate or incomplete offenses

Conduct that is
criminal even though the harm that the law seeks to prevent has not been done, but merely planned or attempted.

mens rea

“Guilty mind,” or blameworthy state of mind, necessary for legal responsibility for a criminal offense; criminal intent, as distinguished from innocent intent.

entrapment

The defense that the individual was induced by the police to commit the criminal act.

Bill of Rights

The first 10 amendments added to the
U.S. Constitution to provide specific rights for individuals, including criminal justice rights concerning searches, trials, and punishments.

self-incrimination

The act of exposing oneself to prosecution by being pressured to respond to questions when the answers may reveal that one has committed a crime. The Fifth Amendment protects defendants against compelled self-incrimination.

double jeopardy

The subjecting of a person to prosecution more than once in the same jurisdiction for the same criminal act; prohibited by the Fifth Amendment.

Barron v. Baltimore (1833)

Case deciding that the protections of the Bill of Rights apply only to actions of the federal government.

Powell v. Alabama (1932)

Case deciding that an attorney must be provided to a poor defendant facing the death penalty.

fundamental fairness

A legal doctrine supporting the idea that so long as a state’s conduct maintains basic standards of fairness, the Constitution has not been violated.

incorporation

The extension of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to make binding on state governments many of the rights guaranteed in the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution (the Bill of Rights).

grand jury

Body of citizens drawn from the community to hear evidence presented by the prosecutor in order to decide whether enough evidence exists to file charges against a defendant.

Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)

Case deciding that indigent defendants have a right to counsel when charged with serious crimes for which they could face six or more months of incarceration.