Address federal and state jurisdiction in criminal cases.
Write an essay of 750-1,000 words in which you:
Address federal and state jurisdiction in criminal cases.
Explain why we have so many different court jurisdictions for criminal offenses.
Explain whether the plethora of jurisdictions enhance or detract from the imposition of justice throughout the country. Provide your reasoning.
Use the GCU Library to locate three to five relevant, scholarly sources in support of your content.
Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. This guide is located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
TO BE RE-WRITTEN FROM THE SCRATCH
State
and Federal Jurisdictions in Criminal Cases
The United States of America as the name suggests
embodies a dual form of governments consisting of the federal and sovereign state
governments operating as part of a unified federation. The state governments
have jurisdictions over the functions within individual states as guaranteed by
the American constitution. The federal government has jurisdictions over
functions of America and some within the states as provided for in the US
constitution. The same dual functionality extends to the criminal justice
system in the state and federal levels. According to Jenkins (2011), the American criminal justice system consists
of state and federal courts each with different jurisdictions over criminal
cases. The duality in the criminal justice system has been blamed sometimes for
creating complexity in deciding the laws necessary laws for the delivery of
decisions.
The different jurisdictions in the US criminal justice
owe a lot to the sovereignty of the states form the federal government. The
functions and structure of the federal courts are mainly determined by the
American constitution. The mandate of
such courts is to address the matters of federal concern. Although federal law
is supreme, the states have been mandated and as a result, established criminal
laws, procedures, and rules for the prosecution of criminal offences. This has
created two forms of jurisdictions over criminal offences between the state and
federal governments. Currently, the state criminal codes handle a majority of
the crimes committed in the United States. Gardner and Anderson (2015) assert that it is only a small percentage of
the offences that can be categorized under the federal and state jurisdictions.
The two levels of governments are sovereign and can enforce laws under their
jurisdictions.
The other reason why
there are different court jurisdictions for criminal offences is due to the
general police power granted by the constitution to the state governments. According
to Gardner & Anderson (2015), there has never been a federal common law and
all federal criminal crimes must be statutory and enacted by Congress. The
general police power remains with the states who are tasked with maintenance of
tranquillity. The federal criminal laws that may be enacted can only govern
protection of the federal government, its employees, officials, and property,
regulation of foreign and interstate trade, and protection of civil rights.
Since a majority of the violations are under the jurisdiction of state governments, different state jurisdictions for criminal cases have been developed. State court handles the largest number of criminal cases unless a case ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Address federal and state jurisdiction in criminal cases.
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