JUDICIAL PROCESS

Judicial Process

Judicial Process

Introduction

Courts play an important role in the lives of everyone. Even before birth until after death, the courts are available to citizens to protect their rights and enforce their responsibilities. The cases of inheritance of the unborn are examples of situations involving the courts to protect their rights, even before birth. The courts also intervene in civil matters such as marriages, divorces, and claims purchases and also in criminal cases such as murders, robberies, burglaries, rapes and other felonies and misdemeanors (Fitzpatrick 2004).

Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States (Ramos 2001). This means that Puerto Rico is in America, but not one of them. According to the island Cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, constitutional rights are not automatically extended to all territories under U.S. control (Morris 1995). The territories and their citizens are entitled to the protection of the U.S. Constitution, despite a few exceptions, such as statements that are incorporated "integral part" of the nation. This paper presents a model court system for the newly created state of Puerto Rico. The intended court system is limited to criminal prosecution. It has been designed in order to explain the stages of the judicial process within Puerto Rico, and steer it in a general way on each of the components of the process.

History of Puerto Rico Judicial System

The history of Puerto Rico legal system has been written prior to 1898 (Torruella 1985). Historians believe that all legal culture of Puerto Rico began with the arrival of the Americans in that year. The truth is, that the Spanish government (in a year of repression) was banned in universities country since the middle of the nineteenth century there was a developed legal activity, being the best example of this that the lawyers were organized as a guild, the Bar Association, since 1840 (Torruella 1985). The administration of justice in Puerto Rico was performed in the early decades of the 19th century by the courts of the villas San Juan, San Germán, Arecibo, Aguada and Coamo, and by special constituted by Capital Captain General and Counsel (Geyh 2006). These courts, except the last-mentioned were usually chaired by a Mayor who was chosen by the municipality with the acquiescence of the Governor and Captain General of the Island (Morris 1995). There were also Lieutenants to War representatives of the Captain General for the various peoples, who administered the jurisdiction, punishing minor offenses and helped them in their judicial process (Fitzpatrick 2004).

Current Judicial Structure

The relationship of the government of Puerto Rico with the U.S. federal government is for many reasons comparable to the federal government's relationship with their states. Everything related to the currency, the defense, foreign affairs and most of the trade between states falls under the jurisdiction of the federal government. The government of Puerto Rico has fiscal autonomy and the right to collect local taxes. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens with full rights and duties that citizenship confers, U.S. social security contribution, but as presidential elections are held only in states and incorporated territories, residents of Puerto Rico do not ...