Justice is a very delicate matter when it concerns the rights of American citizens. The acts of crime control and due process both seek to find justice, but in differing manners that can clash in how they operate. Whether one sees the justice system in America as fragmented or united it is a tenuous balance that must take into account all factual data as is allowed to protect both the victim and the defendant of any crime. The precedents set by English Common Law must apply to every citizen, or they are meaningless to everyone.
While crime control would allow far more freedom in seeking a conviction for the truly guilty it would also allow for far too much generalization during such fact-finding missions. This could lead to false arrests in which a suspect is held without due cause and not offered their constitutional rights. While due process is a much slower and methodical process, it affords protection of civil rights that otherwise would be lacking. In order to serve the public, law enforcement must first protect the rights of the general public (Neubauer & Fradella, 2013).
In a system that is at times seen as fragmented thanks to its many precedents and tenets that have yet to fully keep pace with the modern age, a unified system is needed to dispense justice in a manner that is both fair and objective. Each individual that represents the court and the legal system must be aware that they are after the same ends if only by using different means. Justice for all is not a simple saying to throw about casually in a courtroom. There must be due process and true justice for every individual.
True justice cannot be dispensed without factual data and hard evidence. Opinion and emotion must be removed from the equation when seeking justice. In order to better serve the masses the precedents set forth in the beginning must adapt but hold true to their original intentions. To achieve justice, protection must come before prosecution.
Reference
Neubauer, D.W. & Fradella, H.F. (2013). America’s Courts and the Criminal Justice System
(11th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.
