Courts and Law

On November 16, 2012, I observed a court hearing of 14 cases. Some of these cases dealt with people who committed crimes such as aggravated assault, Acc involving Death/ Injury, Terroristic threats, Retail theft, conspiracy theft, Resist Arrest/Other Law Enforce and Knowing/ in Mftr/Dist of Design Drug.
For the case of Comm. V. Helen Cole was a Retail Theft crime. The defendant Helen Cole was at Sears and stole items such as clothes at the store. She was ordered not to go to the Sears again and she got a year of probation since she was never involved in any other type of crime. Retail Theft is shoplifting (also known as Shrinkage within the retail industry)of goods from a retail establishment.
For the case of Comm. v. Beth Bonsell was an Acc Involving Death/ Injury crime. The defendant Beth Bonsell was on Bald Eagle pike and hit a car that was coming the other way. This resulted in the driver and passenger being servilely hurt, the driver and passenger were rushed to the Altoona Hospital. Beth was charged for the crash and for not being properly licensed. Acc Involving Death/ Injury crime is a crime in which you harm others or you flee the crime in which your harm others.
For the case of Comm. v. Devin Keith was a Conspiracy Theft crime. The defendant Devin was at a Sheetz a gas station in his car with possession of a case of beer. He was charged with DUI, underage drinking and public drunkenness. The defendant Bac was at a 0.194%. A Conspiracy Theft is a crime in which you commit robbery.

How these issues which held in court are important in the criminal justice system is for the reason that these are everyday crimes that people continue to commit. It’s the criminal justice system job to maintain public order and uphold personal freedoms. If it does not uphold public order, it will be like the fourteen cases I observed in the courtroom. These people would commit crimes without any consequences if that was the case. If it did not uphold personal freedoms then people would be afraid that anything they own could be searched or taken from them.
How these issues are related to the topics we discussed in this course is because over the course of the semester, we have talked about the actors in the courthouse, overview of the court and legal structure in the United States, the role of the prosecutors, defendants, defense attorney, judges, victims in the criminal justice system. These topics talked about in class lectures and discussion correlated with what went on in the court cases that I observed.
For example, there are two parts of the court hearing. Part one is the Formal arraignment, in which if offenders have an attorney, the attorney inform offenders of rights and charges pending against them, if offenders DO NOT have an attorney, it is up to the judge to read the offenders their rights. Part two of the court hearing is the Pleas, pleas reaches an agreement with the commonwealth. Offenders can agree to plea guilty to all of the charges or some of the charges. Plea bargains are then held, those who plea guilty to all may receive lighter sentences. The Courts consider the offender’s prior record score when sentencing a score of zero = no previous crimes and a repeat offender has a score of 5+. After that is a repeated violent offender. The worse the crime the higher the record score, and this affects sentencing. You punish the offender, rehabilitate the offender or protect the offender.
These are all important roles that goes on in the court room. If we didn’t have these specific roles in the courtroom the criminal justice system would be unstructured and chaos would happen. This is why we need to maintain and make sure our criminal justice system is in effect.