The Criminal Justice Process involve many steps starting with a Criminal Investigation. The purpose of a Criminal Investigation is to determine if a crime has been committed and identify who has committed the crime. After comes arrest of a suspect.
Which means there is a probable cause to believe that the crime was committed by the suspect. Following arrest, booking occurs at the police station where the suspect is taken for fingerprints and mugshots, which creates a record for the suspect. The next stage is Criminal Charge which the prosecutors have the choice to charge the suspect with the criminal offense or decide to file formal charges and release the suspect from custody. Following this then comes Pretrial which determines if there is a probable cause to believe that the suspect committed the crime. The prosecutor presents the witness who may be cross examined by the defense which allows the defense to learn what some of the evidence will be relied on by the prosecution. In addition to following this is ether a preliminary hearing or a grand jury to make sure that the innocent are not being wrongly accused of a crime they didn’t commit. The rest of the Criminal Justice process involves trial,sentencing, corrections and release upon completion of a sentence. Concurrent Jurisdiction means that two different courts have the authority to listen to the same case presented to them and then decided if the case is civil or criminal.
In the U.S. courts have Concurrent Jurisdiction such as small cases, traffic courts and family courts.Precedent is a legal decision made by a court of authority, which serves as an authoritative rule in future, similar cases. When deciding the prior cases the use of precedent helps make certain rulings among similar cases. These cases are frequently used by other courts in order to resolve pending cases and legal issues. The decision becomes an example of authority for judges deciding similar issues later which obligates courts to look to precedent when making their decisions which allow american law build case by case and make our legal system a common law system.
