Trials and Verdicts - Free Essay in Criminal Justice

Criminal justice is based on trials and verdicts delivered by the courts of law that handle the subject case. Notably, different courts have different capabilities to offer jurisdiction with the Supreme Court being in the topmost power position. Even though most people are accused and sentenced in the court of law, not all are guilty and extensive and thorough investigations are required to wrap up a case. Finally, the guilty persons have rights to various securities and a relief of the sentence they are entitled to, which is sometimes not the best way to accomplish justice. Due to the insofar mentioned concerns, this document will explore three major lawsuits from which a rationale will be offered concerning the proceedings of the cases.

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The first case is meant to exploit the course to be heard by the Wisconsin Supreme Court about the accused, Mastella L. Jackson. The accused was initially charged with first-degree intentional manslaughter and misdemeanor bail jumping in the Outagamie County Court in 2012. In this lawsuit, the accused fired for a review of the initial courts decision, claiming that the court of the circuitry court had ordered suppression of evidence due to a case of police misconduct that had occurred during the interrogation of the accused (Dirr, 2016).

As can be seen in the unfolding lawsuit, the Supreme Court has the power to conduct a hearing based on reviewing a decision made by a lower court. In this case, the Supreme Court is aimed at ensuring that the jurisdiction reached to by any court is based on fair terms and arguments. However, the basis of the jurisdiction arrived at by the Circuit Court is based on questionable grounds and lacks transparency. Notably, the misconduct was cropped from the fact that the accused was not read her Miranda rights before she was interrogated; she was read her rights after the police had questioned her and acquired the evidence. The circuitry court is thus answerable to the Supreme Court for the failure of observing protocol consider the suspects rights. In short, the Circuit Courts jurisdiction can be regarded as inappropriate, and the Supreme Court will give the exclusive jurisdiction.

The second case is based upon a plea bargain that was accepted by the Supreme Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer in Santa Fe in 2013 (Writer, 2013). The bargain plea was given by a Santa Fe man, Marino Leyba Jr., accused of double murder. In what unfolded, the man allegedly shot his pregnant girlfriend together with her father in 2009. The accused pleaded guilty to the two counts of second-degree murder, which if looked into closely should be a murder of three rather than two considering that the girlfriend was eight and a half months pregnant. The accused was initially sentenced to 63 years in prison, but after the considered plea bargain instead of a trial, the sentence was reduced to 16 years.

Critically assessing the turn out of the case, the plea bargain was but an unfair way of delivering justice. Even as the judge said that there is nothing as pure justice. Apparently, the case took a turn that served as unfair to the bereft family. The victims family, a widowed mother, and sister to the girlfriend are the clear evidence of the unfairness that a plea bargain holds; a person can commit murder and any other crime and yet not face the deserved sentence since he/she asks for a plea bargain. The court of law should set out to seek justice in the best way possible by ensuring that the accused victims, if guilty, serve the deserved penalty and sentencing they are given. In other words, plea bargains are just acts of self-interest and are not a fair way of delivering justice ("Brown: Supreme Court Recognizes Key Role of Plea Bargaining in Criminal Justice System", 2012). The power accompanied by plea bargains should be revisited.

The third case explores din this document is one child case in Ontario, Canada about a lady, Tammy Marquardt, who was allegedly accused of killing her son in 1993 and sent behind bars for 14 years. However, recently in the year 2011, she was rescued from a possible lifetime incarceration after it was found that there was a falsification of the autopsy results which were used to accuse her (Shapiro, 2011). The case was rather seen to have been a total trail of injustice.

To get a gist of the case, the accused had a two-year-old son who was accidentally tangled in the sheets one night as he lay in his crib. The accused heard the child crying and went to his aid; she called for the emergency workers and by the time they arrived the child had suffocated. An autopsy was carried out to determine the childs death which the medical personnel declared, was determined to be a murder through smothering. Fourteen years down the line, a justice on Ontarios Court of Appeal; Stephen Goudge reviewed the case and was able to discover that Charles Smith, the pediatric pathologist who handled the autopsy had no training in dealing with a crime suspected autopsy. He had only used junk science to deliver falsified autopsy analogy while hiding the actual evidence (Shapiro, 2011). This was called for the hearing of the case and set the accused mother free. This is just a mere case of the array of injustices that revolve around child murder cases. It is dejected that most of the parents are accused wrongly and imprisoned due to disagreements that exist between legal and medical experts on how to determine the causes of a childs abrupt demise.

To sum it all up, the final jurisdiction given in any lawsuit can be challenged and can be altered following the legality of the process of passing the jurisdiction. This means that the accused also has rights to undergo or not undergo trials and can appeal if he or she was not rightfully sentenced. However, all this reality somehow makes courts decisions unfair and thus the whole court system and powers should be reviewed.

References

Brown: Supreme Court Recognizes Key Role of Plea Bargaining in Criminal Justice System. (2012). University of Virginia School of Law. Retrieved 25 August 2016, from http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/news/2012_spr/plea_bargaining.htm

Dirr, A. (2016). State Supreme Court to hear Jackson case. Post-Crescent Media. Retrieved 25 August 2016, from http://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/crime/2016/01/12/state-supreme-court-hear-jackson-case/78703660/

Shapiro, J. (2011). The Child Cases: Lessons From Canada. NPR.org. Retrieved 25 August 2016, from http://www.npr.org/2011/06/30/137507575/the-child-cases-lessons-from-canada

Writer, T. (2013). Updated: Judge accepts plea bargain in double murder case. Abqjournal.com. Retrieved 25 August 2016, from https://www.abqjournal.com/302099/judge-accepts-plea-bargain-in-double-murder-case.html