Criminal Procedure In The 1960s And 1970s

History. The study of past events. To understand criminal procedure and its issues we must first dive into the history that has lead us into today’s modern concept of criminal procedure. Criminal Procedures can date back to the very beginning of time with Hammurabi’s code, roman law, etc. but we won’t be going that far back. Instead to understand Americas Criminal Procedures you must view and understand the struggle between the individual and conflicting interests. In the book written by Esmein, there was a lot of discussion about the effects the 1960s and 1970 had on criminal procedure. This time was important because it was the start up to a revolution on due process. What was the reason behind criminal procedure? It’s as simple as Equal
Discrimination is a huge issue that leads to unfair stops and frisks, cruel treatment during the booking process and can even effect your arraignment and/ or bail. It has been an underlining problem since the beginning. Although now, we do have several rights now that protect the everyday citizen from being discriminated against. These rights are the 4th 5th 6th 8th and 14th. There are major cases that have lead up to review of these amendments to better help the everyday citizen which will be discussed later. The fourth amendment protects the people from being stopped and frisked unlawfully. The 5th amendment allows a person being arrest the right to not self-incriminate themselves. Likewise, the 5th amendment can protect you from double jeopardy. The 6th amendment allows there to be a jury of peers. The 8th protects you from cruel and unusual punishment. Lastly there is the 14th amendment makes it so that all people regardless of race, gender, etc. have the right to life liberty and property which can’t be denied by the
Cases that affected the 4th amendment are as follows Wolf v Colorado, Mapp v Ohio, Terry v Ohio, United States v Leon, etc. These cases fought the idea of protection against unlawful search and seizures. Within these cases they also give officers rights with exception like for example, United States v Leon gave the police the right to the good faith exception. In Terry v Ohio only if there is an issue with police safety may an officer pat down a suspect. The 5th amendment that protects the right against self-incrimination was because of Miranda V Arizona. This made it where officers had to inform suspects of their rights during the arrest