Functions of a Court



Functions of a Court

Introduction

In criminal cases, the executive branch of government chooses cases to bring before the court based on probable cause that a violation occurred involving a law or ordnance that the legislative branch of government has written.

It is the responsibility of the court within the judicial branch of government to determine if the complaint brought before the court is a legitimate one (Budiansky and Ted, 1995). If the "state," presents a case that shows proof beyond a reasonable doubt involving a legitimately written law, then the defendant is found "guilty" (Budiansky and Ted, 1995).

Functions of a Court

If a defendant is found guilty, it is the responsibility of the court to offer a deterrence to the defendant, so that individual will be encouraged to alter his behavior to comply with the law. In minor traffic cases, often simply the issuance of a fine is common for first time offenses. In more serious cases such as domestic violence, the court may take a closer examination of the factors in the case (Budiansky and Ted, 1995). If sentencing is too insignificant, an offender may consider their offense as the status quo, and their pattern in life would continue as it did leading up to the offense.

Civil procedure is a set of rules, standards, norms, and practices created by a society to provide for the authoritative resolution of disputes between private parties. The process of dispute resolution created by civil procedure serves well-articulated social goals. In American society today, as in the past, “sound judicial administration” is the most important social end civil procedure subserves (Frankel, 1975). Informed by the felt necessities of time and place, sound judicial administration has had a specific meaning in the United States since the creation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in the 1930s. The very first of these rules (rule 1) defines sound judicial administration as the “just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action” (Frankel, 1975). Conspicuously absent from this formulation is the social end that perhaps many Americans would regard as the highest social objective of any system of adjudication: truth. While the American system of adjudication is certainly not indifferent to the search for truth, no judge or lawyer would admit to a failed process if truth did not arrive at the end of the day. However, they would admit to failure if justice, the highest virtue among the elements that inform sound judicial administration, were not realized at the end of a proceeding. “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought.... [L]aws and institution no matter how efficient and wellarranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust” (Rawls 1971: 3).

English kings established three courts in England during the common law period, each superimposed over indigenous tribunals. Also known as royal courts, these courts—the Kings Bench, which traveled with the king; the Exchequer, which handled accounting matters; and the Court of Common Pleas, which oversaw affairs at home—exercised jurisdiction ...