From doing the crime to doing time: How just is our criminal justice system?
In the squad car, the officers who arrested you tell you that a security camera in the mall caught you and your friends shoplifting goods from a store. They tell you that your arrest is based on probable cause, or a reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime. As far as you know, you did nothing wrong. Is it possible to commit a crime without knowing it? The answer to that question depends on a number of factors.
A crime is the intentional commission of an act that violates the law. To qualify as a crime, an act must consist of two basic elements. It must be wrongful, and it must be carried out with intent. To be wrongful, an act must do harm to other individuals or to society.
A crime must always be defined through a law that specifies a particular act as illegal. People commit many wrongful acts every day in our society, but not all of these acts are crimes. For a person’s bad behavior to qualify as a crime, it must have been described and prohibited by law before the act was committed.
Furthermore, a behavior can be labeled “criminal ”only if an illegal act was committed with intent. In other words, the act of wrongdoing must be accompanied by the conscious intention to carry out that act. Such behavior is considered criminal, even if the suspect is ignorant of the law.
Crimes in the United States are usually categorized as either misdemeanors or felonies. A misdemeanor is a criminal offense that is generally less serious than a felony. Misdemeanors are mostly punishable by fines or short jail sentences, usually of less than one year. A felony is a more serious crime. A conviction for a felony offense can result in extended prison time or, in extreme cases, even a death sentence. Felonies that are punishable by death are called capital crimes.
The circumstances or effects of a crime may help determine whether it is classified as a misdemeanor or a felony. For example, shoplifting may be classed as a misdemeanor, or petty theft, if the dollar value of the goods stolen is less than a certain amount. This amount varies by state. In California, for example, the amount is $950. On the other hand, shoplifting may be classed as a felony, or grand theft, if the dollar value is greater than a certain amount. The value of the stolen goods thus helps define the seriousness of the crime.
The effects of an illegal act can also help define its seriousness. In the case of a violent assault, such as a stabbing, whether the victim lives or dies may influence how authorities define the crime and determine a punishment.
Any person suspected of committing a crime has a number of due process rights. The words “due process ”show up twice in the Constitution: in the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments. Each of these amendments prohibits the government from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property ”without “due process of law.”
Basically, due process means the government cannot act unfairly, arbitrarily, or unreasonably in its treatment of criminal suspects. Observing due process means that suspects must always be told of the charges against them. It also guarantees them the opportunity to defend themselves in court.
The Constitution guarantees two types of due process: procedural and substantive. Procedural due process refers to the procedures, or the “how, ”of law enforcement. This means that if the government sets out to deprive someone of life, liberty, or property, it must do so through a fair and reasonable legal process.
The Supreme Court upheld the principle of procedural due process in the 1970 case of Goldberg v. Kelly. In this case, the plaintiff, John Kelly, had accused the state of New York of terminating welfare payments to recipients without giving them a fair chance to defend their rights. New York allowed residents to respond in writing to notice of such termination, but it did not give them the opportunity to appear in person to state their case. The Court determined that the failure to provide a public hearing in advance of termination violated procedural due process.
Substantive due process, on the other hand, relates to the substance of a law rather than the way it is enforced. In such cases, the Court looks at the content of the law to see how it affects due process rights. In the 1923 case of Meyer v. Nebraska, for example, the Court overturned a Nebraska law that forbade the teaching of foreign languages to students in grades lower than ninth grade. The case involved a teacher who taught schoolchildren to read in German.
In its decision, the Court held that the Nebraska law violated intellectual liberty as guaranteed under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Writing for the majority, Justice James C. McReynolds noted that many liberties are protected under due process, including the freedom to “acquire useful knowledge. ”This was one of the first cases in which the Court applied substantive due process to the protection of civil liberties.
Due process rights for juveniles – persons under the age of 18 – are somewhat different from those for adults. These differences stem from reform laws of the early 1900s, which sought to separate juveniles from adults in the criminal justice system. As a result of these laws, juvenile offenders were tried in special courts and housed in reform schools rather than in prisons.
The new juvenile courts created by these reforms sought to take the circumstances of young offenders into account when handing down sentences. However, the proceedings of these courts were held without juries and sometimes without attorneys. This meant that they typically failed to grant due process rights to juvenile suspects.
In 1967, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of In re Gault that expanded the rights of juvenile suspects. Gerald Gault, age 15, had been accused of making an obscene phone call to a neighbor. At his court hearing, Gault admitted to taking part in the call. He testified that he had dialed the number but that a friend had done all of the talking.
No eyewitness testified against Gault, because the neighbor who made the complaint did not show up in court. Nevertheless, the judge concluded that Gault was guilty and sentenced him to six years in a state reform school. An adult convicted of the same crime would have served no more than 60 days in a county jail.
In reviewing the case, the Supreme Court said that juveniles should receive many of the same due process rights as adults. These include the right to be notified of the charges against them, the right to an attorney, the right to confront witnesses, and the right to remain silent. Gault had been given none of these rights. As a result of the Court’s decision, Gault was released and a new hearing was held under different conditions.