History of the U.S. Criminal Courts System

History of the U.S. Criminal Courts System

Introduction

The paper is designed to highlight the historical background of U.S criminal Court System and innovation of Common laws. It also defines the key historical development of U.S courts in the starting of the colonial days. The American courts are taken into own way, and developed in the way to better suit the social requirement of America in today's time.

Discussion

The foundations and origins of American courts descended from the British society. In American colonies, the court system contributed great factor in resolving criminal and civil disputes. Nevertheless, within each colony, the court systems were not precisely same in nature. The colony of Massachusetts Bay had a General Court which made up laws regulation, imposed sentences, and conducted trials. Later on, the courts of the county were produced and the General Court was employed for appeal hearings and especially for those cases who are involved in some serious issues of crimes (Charles, 2008).

In Pennsylvania, the colony allowed wrongdoers to be their own attorneys and to implore their cases to a justice of the peace. After the revolution in America, colonial court systems turned into state courts. It has been found that state courts were not standardized comparative to colonial court systems. The jurisdiction of Appellate is the lawful authority of a court for reviewing a decision that is made by the lower court, at contrast; there were few states which did not allow the appeals of the courts. In 19th century, the huge rise in population contributed to the enormous increase in criminal activities that lead to rise in civil litigation as well as criminal arrests (William, 2006).

Heritage of Common Laws

Common laws system is a legal procedure that provides the immense precedential burden to common law. In simple words, the body of precedent is known as common law and it also ties the decisions of future. The heritage of common law was brought by the territory of Britain, then after the innovation of English law ultimately enforces from the instant of colonization. In most of the cases, when colonies got independence from the territory of Britain, they started transforming to newly introduced countries adopted English common law standard as the default law for carrying into new nation. On the other hand, in few cases, the carrying was not difficult to understand, as there was no expression towards the ...