Criminal Justice

1. The pretrial court process begins with an arrest and ends with the filing of any pretrial motions. Discuss the elements associated with each phase of the pretrial process.

The judicial system has a variety of levels and a variety of steps to it. There are three different major components to the court process, the pretrial, judicial proceedings and the post trial proceedings. I am going to briefly discuss the phases of the pretrial process.

The arrest of the offender is the first step in the process, and being that I am Law Enforcement, I feel like this is the most important phase of the process. The arrest phase begins with the formal complaint or discovery of the crime itself and the people involved determined by a formal investigation (Garland, 2011). This is a very important phase, the law enforcement personnel should be constantly communicating with the prosecutor to determine what is needed (evidence wise) to formally charge the individual being investigated.

The booking of the suspect(s) consists of the formal processing of the individual(s) whom were taken into custody. They are fingerprinted, photographed and all of their personal items are inventoried (Garland, 2011).

The prosecutor of the case will then make the determination, based on facts or basis of facts, whether or not to proceed with formal charges against the defendant (Garland, 2011). After the prosecutor decides to formally charge the defendant then the defendant will make an initial appearance in the court. At this court appearance, the judge presiding over the case will determine if the crime being charged is appropriate, the defendant is named correctly, there is reasonable basis for the charges brought forward, if counsel is maintained or needed and what if any bail conditions will be set (Garland, 2011).

The defendant will then appear for another court appearance called the preliminary hearing. This will allow the judge to determine if there is probable cause for the charges. This is followed immediately by the Grand Jury; the Grand Jury will hand down a formal indictment if the evidence present is sufficient to proceed to trail (Garland, 2011) and the prosecutor will file documents officially charging the defendant with the crime(s) under investigation.

This begins the last phase, the pretrial motions, these are to determine and/or challenge the legality of things such as searches and or confessions. The prosecution and the defense will then begin the exhausting phase of discovery, which is the exchange of information. This process can allow for a smoother trail as it more or less lessens the surprise element while formally arguing the case (Garland, 2011).

The pretrial process, from the arrest to the discovery is imperative to the judicial system. All of the phases allow for the constitutional rights of the accused to be protected on many levels and provides a sort of check and balance throughout the process.

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