Posted: September 9th, 2022

Lessons learned

Lessons learned
I learned various things from the two chapters. With regards to chapter 8, I got some insights about the roles that courts play. In a nutshell, the court is where arguments are settled. This means that when two or more parties are not in agreement about a particular legal matter, they resort to a court to help them solve the disagreement. Other functions of the courts as learned from this chapter include safeguarding the rights of citizens, controlling crime by punishing criminals and reforming them as well as dispensing justice (Gaines 256). Another lesson pertains to the difference between trial and appellate courts. In particular, I learned that the trial courts put focus on assessing the facts of a case, and then relying on those facts to make a judgment. On the contrary, appellate courts focus on reviewing the judgments of the trial courts; therefore, they establish if the correct procedures were followed in judging cases (Gaines 260).
Regarding chapter 9, I learned how to differentiate the roles of a prosecutor as a crime fighter and as an elected official. Apparently, a prosecutor is considered to be a crime fighter because they help the law enforcement agencies in gathering evidence that pertain to certain crimes and using the evidence to convict offenders (Gaines 288). The prosecutor is also considered to be an elected official because they are usually appointed by government to represent it in criminal matters (288). Notably, in many jurisdictions, prosecutors are elected into office. The other lesson in this chapter relates to the adversary system. In this regard, I learned that this system has three main features which include a decision maker who is neutral and passive, presentation of evidence by parties involved and sets of procedures that are highly structured (Gaines 296). All these serve to reduce bias.

Work Cited
Gaines, Larry K.. Criminal Justice in Action. Cengage Textbook. Kindle Edition, 2016.

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