Judicial System Process

Judicial System Process

Introduction

This paper presents an analysis of the entire criminal justice process for a felony criminal charge filed in a state court. It presents a chronological analysis of each of the stage involved in the criminal justice process. It also provide analyses of how constitutional protections for the defendant work at the stage of the proceeding. The following part of the report discusses the criminal justice process in detail.

Criminal Justice Process

Criminal justice process is a conglomerate of multiple stages that leads to final appeal stage for both federal and state court. These stages are followed in a sequential manner under standard judicial process. These are as follows.

Investigation 

An officer who lacks reasonable suspicion may still approach a suspect and ask questions designed to produce evidence of criminal activity as long as the encounter is voluntary, or consensual (Guiora, 2008). The majority of investigations occur without a warrant. There are numerous situations, as established by the courts, where a search warrant is not necessary (Vogel, 2007). These exceptions include, but are not limited to: searches incident to arrest, consent, stop and frisk, plain view, emergency, and vehicle searches. A warrant for a search is not necessary when a person is lawfully arrested; however, the officers only have a limited area in which to conduct the search. Investigations are done to find out the evidences against suspects and lead to identify apparent facts indicating that evidence of criminality can be found in a specific place (Inbau, 2005).

A search warrant is an order signed by a judge that legally entitles police officers to arrest or search for specific objects or materials at a definite location at a specified time. Police officers must attain a warrant by first presenting an affidavit to a judge or magistrate. An affidavit is a written statement provided by an officer that states that there is probable cause to believe that criminal activity or evidence of a crime is at a specific location. Establishing probable cause has to be more than simple suspicion (Guiora, 2008); it has to be based on supporting facts and circumstances that reasonably justify that an offense has been committed or where items can be found. The officer then presents the affidavit to the judge or magistrate and swears under oath that the statement is truthful. If the judge or magistrate is convinced of probable cause, then a warrant is issued (Vogel, 2007). The warrant contains the reason for requesting the arrest or search, the names of the persons presenting the affidavits, what specifically is being searched for, and the signature of the judge. One of most common exceptions are warrantless searches with consent. The Court has set specific guidelines in terms of how consent is given and who can give consent.

Arrest

Once law enforcement positively identify the person to be arrested, the arresting officer(s) should identify themselves as police officers, inform the person of his or her arrest, and inform the person of the charges for which the arrest is being made (Reichel, ...