CROWN COURTS AND MAGISTRATE COURTS

Crown Courts and Magistrate Courts



Crown Courts and Magistrate Courts

Introduction

The crown court deals with criminal cases they are class 1 offences such as murder, class 2 offenses such as rape, class 3 offenses such as death by dangerous driving and class 4 offenses such ad GBH. The Crown court cases are tried by a high court judge for rape and murder and either a high court judge or circuit judge. I reached there at 9:30 am in the morning. I was asked by my professor to meet the usher as to ask the details of the day. Usher told me that there were two major cases whose final decisions were to be taken that day. Since, I was allowed to go in one in the given time; I chose the case of murder.

Court Officials: Designation and Functions

The case I observed was a murder case of a girl. The crown court cases are decided by the jury through evidence that is bought up in the case. The people involved in this case were the high court judge seated at the top to show high status, 12 members of the jury, the usher, the defendant, the prosecution and the clerk (Anthony 2002, 91). The court was very formal and the atmosphere was very respectful as the judge would walk in we would all stand up. No one interrupted any one while they were speaking and the public was absolutely quite throughout.

Judge and Juror

I attended Snaresbrook Crown court at court 1 which was hearing a case on a murder of a girl named Kelly. The Court consisted of 12 jurors. Jurors chosen at random, they all were British citizens, aged 18 to 70 years. As in any criminal proceedings, the use of the language was very formal. The defendant Mr. Abdul, who was inside the court sitting in the dock, was being defended by barrister V. Girling QC, where barrister G. Reece was on the prosecution side representing the family of the murdered girl. The twelve members of the jury were brought in by order of the judge who instructed the usher to allow them in via the near side door.

The defence argued on the fact that the girl was not murdered by Abdul as he was the one who theft her purse. The defence barrister also argued on the good character evidence of their client to be taken into consideration and request this to the judge to take it on board when referring to the jury for their deliberations (Smith 2003, 45).

Summary of the case

In order to understand the case clearly and make the right decision, it is imperative to summarize the contents of the above case so that we may not miss any important point.

At the time Kelly was walking through the woods, she took that particular rout only because she could not go up the steep hill. She was out of breath as she was still recovering from ...