2. A jurisdiction may have an intermediate appellate court which hear appeals from trial courts, within a particular region of the state, encompassing countries, or it may have a federal system which handle appeals from district courts in one of 11 federal circuits.
C. Power to Select Cases for Review
1. The U.S. Supreme Court has a writ of certiorari-a request for review-and the court may deny this without reason. ?Denial of certiorari may not mean the justices find the case lacks merit, but rather that they do not think its implications are broad enough to affect the law of the land; or denial may indicate that the Court does not wish to consider such matters at this time.?
D. Role in Law Reform
1. (Answer to question 12) Should the legislatures or the appellate courts dominate in law reform? (P. 102, para. 4, all) ?The controversy between legislatures and appellate courts is not limited to the judicial review of the constitutionality of statutes. Another important issue is whether legislatures or courts should dominate in law reform. The intensity of this servative, interpreting laws as cases arise, holding to the judicial principle of stare decisis, and being unwilling to take the lead is shaping laws or defining legal procedures.
2. There have been seven opposing trends in the relation ship between executive, legislative, and judicial involvement in the criminal justice system. The following are the opposing trends:
a. Increasing legislative involvement in criminal law policy.
b. Chief executives, an especially U.S. president, to attempt to curb the judicial activism of higher courts so evident in recent decades.
c. Each opening on the U.S. Supreme Court now meets with vigorous debate and political maneuvering by liberal and conservative forces to endorse a new member who would presumably support the philosophy of law espoused by those doing the maneuvering.
d. One of the powers of the executive is to appoint members to the lower appellate courts to life terms.
e. The court lower courts tend to have a source of authority for the criminal justice system that is independent from political pressure from the public and branches of government.
VIII. AGENCY AUTHORITY
A. Police Authority
1. Traditional crimes are processed in a number ways that may be originated by:
a. A complaint or call for help made to police.
b. Routine police patrols, other forms of surveillance, and the stopping and questioning of suspicious people.
c. Police searches for violations, as in placing wiretaps on the phones of suspected gangsters or the use of undercover cops to investigate the drug subculture.
2. (Answer to question 13) Why is full enforcement of the law a myth? (P. 103, para. 3, last six lines) Full enforcement of the law is a myth due to selective enforcement. ?Police discretion (judgement as to alternatives in enforcement) is exercised by the police agencies as a whole and by each individual police officer. Reasons for police discretion range from community expectations of ?sensible? enforcement to police efforts to achieve desired purposes without using the entire justice process-for example, handling drunks by helping them or warning rather than arresting those violating minor laws.?
3. The primary reason why the myth of full police enforcement exists is that legislatures and courts have refused to sanction police discretion, which in turn puts police officials in a defensive position.
4. To appease police discretion discrepancies departments have attempted to develop policy guidelines for the exercise of discretion.
B. Prosecutor?s Authority
1. (Answer to question 14) Regarding the prosecutor?s authority, what is the range of such authority? (P. 104, second para., lines 1-4) The prosecutor?s authority is the use of ?prosecutorial discretion is clearly broad in scope, ranging from the power of nolle prosequi (a decision not to initiate prosecution even with sufficient evidence to do so, sometimes abbreviated to nol pros) to the selection of specific charges to be leveled against any defendant.?
2. The prosecutorial process is really a series of decisions, ranging form the deciding whether to prosecute at all to determining the number of and specific charges to be presented to a grand jury or judge at a preliminary hearing.
3. If the decision was not to prosecute it is virtually uncontrollable, short of evidence of corruption or other forms of malfeasance on the part of the district attorney. Decisions to proceed to prosecution are subject to be screened by grand juries or judges at preliminary hearings.
C. Trial Court as a Criminal Justice Agency
1. (Answer to question 15) Why is trial court also an on-line criminal agency? (P. 104, first para. Under ?Trial Court? subhead) Trial court is also an on-line agency ?Although it has the title ?court,? in operational term a the trial court, presided over by a judge, is an on-line agency for the processing of accused offenders and the sentencing of those convicted of criminal activities. The police and the prosecutor move cases along the assembly line of justice and the court stamps individuals ?convicted? and moves them along to correctional agencies.?
2. The judge?s duty other than formal duties at trial and sentencing is also to be responsible for court personnel, from clerks to probation officers.
3. In statutes are fixed, such as , mandatory sentencing for certain crimes, the judge is usually granted the authority to choose among several sentencing alternatives.
4. Judge?s are delegated discretion to choose the following:
a. Types of sentences (fines, probation, or imprisonment).
b. Conditions of sentence (particularly rules of probation0.
c. To fix minimum or maximum lengths of prison sentences within the outer limits set by statute.
5. In trial court the judge must rely on the impartial analyses of evidence and will arrive at their own decision on their own professional basis using their skills as lawyers and jurists.
VII. RELATIONSHIPS AMONG ON-LINE CRIMINAL JUSTICE AGENCIES
A. Social Values Served by Variations in Criminal Justice Organization
1. There are six differences between an on-line criminal justice agency and a traditional complex organization, in sequence, they are:
a. Presence or absence of central authority.
b. Separate or related budgets.
c. Jurisdictional boundaries.
d. Labor pools and interchangeability of personnel in each agency.
e. Patterns of personnel selection and recruitment sources.
f. Amount of citizen involvement in agency decision making.
2. There is another way to depict the criminal justice process, which is to look at it as an ever-narrowing funnel that screens offenders.
3. Efficiency is the only goal of the criminal justice system. The governmental separation of the powers of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches supports our political philosophy of pluralism and freedom, so the mix of agencies and personnel serves values that we espouse as well.
4. ?A more uniform, better organized system could probably be achieved only by diminishing citizen control and forfeiting local autonomy and some individual rights.? (P. 107, para. First full paragraph, lines 3-5)
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