Part 1
The focus of this assignment is for you to research and to critically analyze the court system in your own community. The questions below will help you to guide your research and your response which you should construct in an essay format with sub-titles addressing as much of the following points as the information available to you. To successfully comment, you should first understand some basic demographics about your own community. For example, you should be familiar with the population of your community (city or county) and also the approximate race and age distribution of your community. This information may be available at a variety of sources ranging from the US Census reports to Wikipedia or the official website of your city or county. The next thing that you will need to research and to know about your community is some specifics regarding the court system. Use some of the guidance provided in the lesson as well as the internet to locate information regarding your local city or your local county judicial system. In a last resort, if this information is not available to you, you should use information regarding your state court. (If you are not from the US or not presently in the US, then you may also wish to provide a comparative analysis of your country’s court system to that of the US Courts.)
Since most students will be answering regarding your county court system, you should be able to find the information about local judges on the official county government website, under judiciary or court system. You may also be able to find out more information from local newspapers. I want you to research and become familiar with the chief justice or the president judge of your community court system. For some of you who might struggle with details on your community court system, because of either antiquated websites or huge bureaucratic court structures, then please pick any known judge in your community to research and respond to the following questions. You should know about the judge’s background and his/her age, race, education, experience, and ties to the community. You should also know about what type of criminal justice problems (crimes, issues, etc.) exist in your community. The majority of the following essay questions will ask you to provide some critical thought and response as to how your judge handles court case challenges and what specific improvements, enhancements, and alterations could be implemented to make your judge or your court system more efficient and effective for your community.
To complete this essay:
Describe your community by name, geography, and demographics.
Detail some of the specific criminal justice issues or problems which you know to impact your community. Provide some basic examples from case studies or new related sources which demonstrate these issues or problems.
Write a brief biography on a court judge in your community. This may be a chief justice, president judge, judge, or local magistrate. Discuss their background and experience and using news articles and other sources, provide some commentary on how the judge is particularly perceived or involved in solutions to community criminal justice issues.
Comment on how you believe your community court system could be more efficient and more effective to the criminal justice system and to your community.
Part 2
Using the internet, locate a news article about a criminal court case that is under appeal and provide a link to that case study. (Please read through the postings of your classmates to be sure there are no duplicates.) In addition to posting the case study link, write a few sentences to describe the constitutional issue that is significant to the appeal and also comment in your own opinion about the merits of the appeal. In your opinion and based on what you know about the criminal justice system, should this case be affirmed, reversed, or remanded by the appellate court?
