Module 1 in Court
Module 1 in Court
-An accused person must be informed of the rights set out in the said paragraph of Section 12
upon being held as a suspect and made to undergo custodial investigation by the police
authorities.9 As explained by this Court in People vs. Accused, 10 custodial investigations
involve any questioning initiated by law enforcement authorities after a person is taken into
custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant manner. And, the rule
begins to operate at once as soon as the investigation ceases to be a general inquiry into an
unsolved crime and direction is then aimed upon a particular suspect who has been taken into
custody and to whom the police would then direct interrogatory question which tend to elicit
incriminating statements.Furthermore, not only does the fundamental law impose, as a requisite
function of the investigating officer, the duty to explain those rights to the accused, but also that
there must correspondingly be a meaningful communication to and understanding thereof by the
accused. A mere perfunctory reading by the constable of such rights to the accused would thus
not suffice. The defendant in the dock must be made to understand comprehensively, in the
language or dialect that he knows, the full extent of the same. A confession made in an
atmosphere characterized by deficiencies in informing the accused of all the rights to which he
is entitled would be rendered valueless and inadmissible, perforated, as it is by non-compliance
with the procedural and substantive safeguards to which an accused is entitled under the Bill of
Rights and as now further implemented and ramified by statutory law.11
To reiterate, prior to the commencement of the investigation, the accused must perforce be
informed, on top of all his other rights enumerated therein, that's where he lacks a counsel of his
choice because of indigence or other incapacitating cause, he shall be provided with one.
Without this further1
Safeguard, the cautionary right to counsel would merely impress upon the accused, more so
upon an impecunious person like appellant who is hardly educated, that his right thereto would
mean simply that he can consult a lawyer if he has one or has the financial capacity to obtain
legal services, and nothing more. As a rule, a judgment of acquittal cannot be reconsidered
because it places the accused under double jeopardy. To reconsider a judgment of acquittal
places the accused twice in jeopardy of being punished for the crime of which he has already
been absolved.There is reason for this provision of the Constitution. In criminal cases, the full
power of the State is ranged against the accused. If there is no limit to attempts to prosecute the
accused for the same offense after he has been acquitted, the infinite power and capacity of
the State for a sustained and repeated litigation would eventually overwhelm the
accused in terms of resources, stamina, and the will to fight. On occasions, a motion for
reconsideration after an acquittal is possible. But the grounds are exceptional and narrow as
when the court that absolved the accused gravely abused its discretion, resulting in loss of
jurisdiction, or when a mistrial has occurred. In any of such cases, whether penalize as grave,
less grave or light offenses. This will still keep intact the distinct concept of quasi-offenses.
Meanwhile, the lenient schedule of penalties under Article 365, befitting crimes occupying a
lower rung of culpability,should cushion the effect of this ruling.
2.To determine by all legal means whether a person is guilty of a crime. In 500 words, give your ideas
and opinion regarding that statement.
-Four major principles, crime prevention, rehabilitation and reintegration, and meaningful
consequences that differ from adults. A delinquent under this act has the same rights and
privileges as an adult who is charged with a crime, including the options such as the right to bail,
preliminary hearing, according to the rules of the evidence and the Crown’s obligation in
providing the known evidence. notice of a young person being charged, arrested and detained
is to be given to his or her parent(s); a young person, if detained in custody, is to be kept apart
from adult prisoners; information which may identify young persons who are involved in Youth
Court proceedings (as an accused, a witness or a victim) may not be published; the court may
exclude persons from the courtroom, and access to a young offender’s record is restricted.The
same crime committed by the young offender and the adult will have different punishments
because society recognizes that young offenders do not have the cognitive development that
adults have and those young offenders can benefit from the rehabilitation services to prevent
recidivism.children are kept away from all kinds of criminal environments and identifying and
intervening with the factors that cause them to step into guilt is one of the fundamental duties
and purpose to be provided by insuring the YJCA, due to the four major principles of crime
prevention, rehabilitation and reintegration, and meaningful consequences that differ from
adults. Individual behavior forms one of the most contributing factors towards a person’s
propensity to commit or not to commit a crime. Various factors contribute towards behavioral
development and change in an individual; the current economy, the competence portrayed by
the police, the parentage and nurturing an individual receives from family, accessibility, and use
of illegal drugs and finally the quality and level of discipline exercised by school institutions on
the students. Every crime committed has consequences that can either be positive or negative
depending on the reasons for committing the offense. This essay intends to analyze the
implications of committing a crime. The penalty for committing crimes can lead to rewards or
can also be a source of punishment. Both positive and negative consequences crop up from
committing a crime. This can be categorized into rewards and/or punishments. The rewards of
crime are only beneficial to the perpetrators.Victims of acts of crime suffer significant losses
either physically or psychologically as well as from a material perspective. One of the positive
rewards of committing a crime is the material gain that one acquires from the offense. Crimes
range in form from smuggling, corruption, arson, theft, robbery among others.As a result, their
whole perspective about life can change causing them to develop feelings of resentment
towards other human beings which tends to make them a criminal inclination worse as is the
case with most criminals. In other cases, the victim may retaliate since not all perpetrators of
crimes harm the victims they had intended to harm. For some reason, the victim may be more
powerful than the criminal.
Crime is an act that exists in every society, and people’s different behavioral characteristics
determine the degree of crime. There are various factors which are known to impact people's
behavior and as a result tend to incline them towards criminal activities; the economy, nurturing
and police system to mention a few.
To reduce the crime rates in most cities and developing areas, people must be aware of these
factors and embrace solutions to causes of adverse behavioral change in growing teenagers
and young children.
3.To dispose properly of those convicted of the crimes. In 500 words, give your ideas and opinion
regarding that statement.
No man ever gave up his liberty merely for the good of the public. Such a chimera exists only in
romances. Every individual wishes, if possible, to be exempt from the compacts that bind the
rest of mankind.
The multiplication of mankind, though slow, being too great for the means which the earth, in its
natural state, offered to satisfy necessities, which every day became more numerous, obliged
men to separate again, and form new societies. These naturally opposed the first, and a state of
war was transferred from individuals to nations.
Thus it was necessity that forced men to give up a part of their liberty; it is certain, then, that
every individual would choose to put into the public stock the smallest portion possible; as much
only as was sufficient to engage others to defend it. The aggregate of these, the smallest
portions possible, forms the right of punishment: all that extends beyond this is abuse, not
justice.
Observe, that by justice I understand nothing more than that bond, which is necessary to keep
the interest of individuals united; without which, men would return to the original state of
barbarity. All punishments, which exceed the necessity of preserving this bond, are in their
nature unjust. We should be cautious how we associate the word justice, an idea of anything
real, such as a physical power, or a being that actually exists. I do not, by any means, speak of
the justice of God, which is of another kind, and refers immediately to rewards and punishments
in a life to come.
4. To protect the society. In 500 words, give your ideas and opinion regarding that statement.
-Judges, in criminal cases, have no right to interpret the penal laws, because they are not legislators.
They have not received the laws from our ancestors as a domestic tradition, or as the will of a testator,
which his heirs and executors are to obey; but they receive them from a society actually existing, or
from the sovereign, its representative. Even the authority of the laws is not founded on any pretended
obligation, or ancient convention; which must be null, as it cannot bind those who did not exist at the
time of its institution; and unjust, as it would reduce men, in the ages following, to a herd of brutes,
without any power of judging or acting. The laws receive their force and authority from an oath of
fidelity, either tacit or expressed, which living subjects have sworn to their sovereign, in order to restrain
the intestine fermentation of the private interests of individuals. From hence springs their true and
natural authority. Who then is their lawful interpreter? The sovereign, that is, the representative of
society, and not the judge, whose office is only to examine, if a man have or have not, committed an
action contrary to the laws.
In every criminal cause the judge should reason syllogistically. The major should be the general law; the
minor the conformity of the action, or its opposition to the laws; the conclusion, liberty or punishment.
If the judge be obliged by the imperfection of the laws, or chuses to make any other, or more syllogisms
than this, it will be an introduction to uncertainty.
There is nothing more dangerous than the common axiom: the spirit of the laws is to be considered. To
adopt it is to give way to the torrent of opinions. This may seem a paradox to vulgar minds, which are
more strongly affected by the smallest disorder before their eyes, than by the most pernicious, though
remote, consequences produced by one false principle adopted by a nation.
Our knowledge is in proportion to the number of our ideas. The more complex these are, the greater is
the variety of positions in which they may be considered. Every man hath his own particular point of
view, and at different times sees the same objects in very different lights. The spirit of the laws will then
be the result of the good or bad logic of the judge; and this will depend on his good or bad digestion; on
the violence of his passions; on the rank and condition of the abused, or on his connections with the
judge; and on all those circumstances which change the appearance of objects in the fluctuating mind of
man. Hence we see the fate of a delinquent changed many times in passing through the different courts
of judicature, and his life and liberty victims to the false ideas or ill humour of the judge; who mistakes
the vague result of his own confused reasoning, for the just interpretation of the laws. We see the same
crimes punished in a different manner at different times in the same tribunals; the consequence of not
having consulted the constant and invariable voice of the laws, but the erring instability of arbitrary
interpretation.
The disorders that may arise from a rigorous observance of the letter of penal laws, are not to be
compared with those produced by the interpretation of them. The first are temporary inconveniencies,
which will oblige the legislator to correct the letter of the law, the want of preciseness and uncertainty
of which has occasioned these disorders; and this will put a stop to the fatal liberty of explaining; the
source of arbitrary and venal declamations. When the code of laws is once fixed, it should be observed
in the literal sense, and nothing more is left to the judge than to determine, whether an action be, or be
not, conformable to the written law. When the rule of right, which ought to direct the actions of the
philosopher as well as the ignorant, is a matter of controversy, not of fact, the people are slaves to the
magistrates. The despotism of this multitude of tyrants is more insupportable, the less the distance is
between the oppressor and the oppressed; more fatal than that of one, for the tyranny of many is not to
be shaken off, but by having recourse to that of one alone. It is more cruel, as it meets with more
opposition, and the cruelty of a tyrant is not in proportion to his strength, but to the obstacles that
oppose him.
These are the means by which security of person and property is best obtained; which is just, as it is the
purpose of uniting in society; and it is useful, as each person may calculate exactly the inconveniencies
attending every crime. By these means subjects will acquire a spirit of independence and liberty;
however it may appear to those who dare to call the weakness of submitting blindly to their capricious
and interested opinions by the sacred name of virtue.
5.To prevent and reduce criminal behavior. In 500 words, give your ideas and opinion regarding that
statement.
-It may seem extraordinary that I speak of probability with regard to crimes, which, to deserve a
punishment, must be certain. But this paradox will vanish, when it is considered, that, strictly speaking,
moral certainty is only probability; but which is called a certainty, because every man in his senses
assents to it from an habit produced by the necessity of acting, and which is anterior to all speculation.
That certainty which is necessary to decide that the accused is guilty, is the very same which determines
every man in the most important transactions of his life.
The proof of a crime may be divided into two classes, perfect and imperfect. I call those perfect which
exclude the possibility of innocence; imperfect, those which do not exclude this possibility. Of the first,
one only is sufficient for condemnation; of the second, as many are required to form a perfect proof:
that is to say, that though each of these, separately taken, does not exclude the possibility of innocence,
it is nevertheless excluded by their union. It should be also observed, that the imperfect proofs of which
the accused, if innocent, might clear himself, and does not, become perfect.
But it is much easier to feel this moral certainty of proofs, than to define it exactly. For this reason, I
think it is an excellent law which establishes assistants to the principal judge, and those chosen by lot;
for that ignorance, which judges by its feelings, is less subject to error, than the knowledge of the laws
which judges by opinion. Where the laws are clear and precise, the office of the judge is merely to
ascertain the facts. If, in examining the proofs of a crime, acuteness and dexterity be required; if
clearness and precision be necessary in summing up the result; to judge of the result itself, nothing is
wanting but plain and ordinary good sense, a less fallacious guide than the knowledge of a judge
accustomed to find guilty, and to reduce all things to an artificial system, borrowed from his studies.
Happy nation, where the knowledge of the law is not a science!
It is an admirable law which ordains, that every man shall be tried by his peers; for when life, liberty and
fortune are in question, the sentiments, which a difference of rank and fortune inspire, should be silent;
that superiority with which the fortunate look upon the unfortunate, and that envy with which the
inferior regard their superiors, should have no influence. But when the crime is an offense against a
fellow-subject, one half of the judges should be peers to the accused, and the other peers to the person
offended. So that all private interest, which, in spite of ourselves, modifies the appearance of objects,
even in the eyes of the most equitable, is counteracted, and nothing remains to turn aside the direction
of truth and the laws. It is also just, that the accused should have the liberty of excluding a certain
number of his judges. Where this liberty is enjoyed for a long time, without any instance to the contrary,
the criminal seems to condemn himself.