The U.S. Criminal Court System

A criminal court usually forms the second tier of the criminal justice system in the United States of America. The three pillars of the system are as follows:

* Law enforcement agencies like the police
* Adjudication bodies which include the criminal court and other U.S. courts
* Correction facilities such as prison or jail

All the courts in the U.S. are established in accordance to Article 1 and Article 3 of the Constitution. These courts are broadly classified into the following four types:

* The U.S. Supreme Court, which is the highest in the hierarchy of the court system.
* The U.S. Courts of Appeal (a total of 94) spanning over the 12 regional circuits, which hear disputed cases from the lower district courts.
* The U.S. District Courts, which are essentially the trial courts.
* The U.S. Bankruptcy Court, which deals with bankruptcy filings.

The readers who want an in-depth discussion regarding the U.S. criminal court system can visit http://www.uscourts.gov/ which is the official website of the U.S. federal courts.
http://www.uscourts.gov/understand03/http://www.peoplepublicrecords.org/index.html is another good site for detailed information about the structure of U.S. federal courts.

Process and Chronology of a Case in U.S. Criminal Court

The system followed in any U.S. criminal court to arrive at a verdict regarding the innocence or guilt of a person is known as the "adversarial system." The essence of the system is:

- Both the parties involved (like the government and an individual or an organization) offer their side of the story to the U.S. court along with evidence to support their argument. The court hears arguments from both parties and passes judgment based on law as applicable to that particular case.

The processing of the case in any U.S. criminal court is simple and involves the following basic activities:

* The proceeding of any court case starts with the district attorney, who is an appointed lawyer of the state, making a statement regarding the charges against a person or an organization before the court.
* The defense attorney fights for the accused and helps him or her in matters such as the acceptance of a plea offer, whether to testify or not, or to demand a jury trial through several hearings.
* The final verdict of the case which either pronounces a person guilty or innocent is usually provided by a judge, a group of judges or a jury. It is mandatory that the judges and the members of the jury are in no way associated with the case. At the same time they must be unbiased.

Plea Bargaining

This process eliminates the need for trial in most cases. The accused has one of the following four options:

* Guilty
* Not Guilty
* No Contest
* Alford

Usually a plea is entered in exchange for reduced punishment or cooperation with the state to bring other criminals to justice.

Indictments

An indictment is a formal document which proclaims that an individual has committed a crime. It is basically a charging instrument and can be of two types:

* A direct indictment in which a case is sent to trial without any preliminary inquiry.
* A sealed indictment which remains hidden from the public until it is unsealed.