Law Exam

1.

Explain the confidentiality rules of defense attorneys and explain some situations where they may be able to disclose confidential information

List and discuss the four types of office policy that influence prosecutors’ decision making according to discussion by Jacoby, Mellon, and Smith

Describe and discuss the major ethical issues for judges as presented in your text

Discuss the various forms of forensic testimony and why they have been criticized

Where do rules of behavior for attorneys come from, and how are they enforced?

Discuss the number of innocents who may be imprisoned. What are the sources for the estimates? What are the criticisms of the sources?

Discuss the seemingly contradictory ideal that to ensure the natural rights presented by natural law theorists there must be both less government involvement and more government involvement.

Define punishment and then discuss the major rationales of punishment.

What are Mackie’s three types of retribution? Compare and contrast them

Describe how CO’s have discretion similar to police officers and court personnel.

List and describe some forms of corruption committed by CO’s.

What are some ways to reduce corruption in the prison environment?

Describe the discretion of probation and parole officers and provide examples of ethical and unethical applications of discretion

Discuss ethical issues for probation and parole officers and differentiate them

Describe the types of probation officers and ethical issues for each.

Explain how Abu Ghraib can provide us with lessons for managing the ethical prison.

List and discuss some management practices that have been found to contribute to an ethical workplace

Describe and discuss restorative justice and its potential role in dealing with misconduct and corruption in corrections

What are the two justifications for a “just war”?

What is the argument in support of torture? What is the argument against it?

List and discuss the elements Cohen identifies as justifying police action

Compare and contrast the crime control approach and the public service approach of law enforcement.

Briefly describe the weaknesses (points of criticism) for both natural and positivist law?

Discuss the various ways in which the federal government has responded to terrorism.

What are the ways in which prison is harmful?

Forensic testimony has become essential in the court system in the 21st Century but because forensics

is constanbtly evolving some forensic approaches are not fully accepted by the scientific community.

In the past DNA was criticized but is now fully accepted but forensic techniques involving bite marks are

highly criticized as well as the actual expert testimony from the forensic expert. Juries beleive in forensic

even if the the expert has no experience or the science being introduced is flawed.

The rules of behavior for attornies are found in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct created by the

American Bar Association. the American Bar Association is responsible for governing the behavior of

lawyers and ensuring they adhere to the rules established. When lawyers enage in misconduct or fail to

follow professional standards they risk loosing their right to practice law.

The most common number discussed concerning the wrongfully convicted is 3 to 5 percent.

According to the Sentencing Project there are currently tens of thousands of innocent people

sitting in jail. Many of the people wrongfully convicted are pressured into plea deals by prosecutors to

avoid the cost of a high trial.

According to natrual law the government has a responsbility to ensure criminals are punsihed but the

government does not have the right to intrude upon the natural rights of the citizen. In other words

while a government is necessary to ensure orderly conduct but they cannot become oppressive or

inpose their moral judgement.

Punishment is a response to crime to ensure the person committing the crime receives their just

desert. Punishment ensures criminals pay for the crime they commit. this is known as the

retributive approach. Punishment is the justifiable response to a crime which creates a vicim or

causes damage to society. When a person commits a crime punsihment is an eye for an eye. It is

what the criminal deserves.

Mackie's three types of retribtuion are negative retribution, postive retribution, and permissive retribution.

Negative retribution refers to not punsihing the innocent while postivie retribution is making sure the

guilty are punsihed for the crimes they commit. Postive retribution is most commonly applied in the

criminal justice system. Permissive retribution is finding the criminal may be punsihed or may not be

punished dependant on the crime.

Correctional officers are responsbile for the day to day care of prison ninmates. each day, as with the

police officers, new situations arise. In order to ensure the situation is handled adequtely the CO is

given a great deal of latitude. Discretion is the ability to act or having auhority over the decision making

process. Correctional officers have the discretion to punsih criminal inmates are to reward good

behavior. They can search cells or reward the inmate with privelages. Similar to police and court person

this discretion gives the correctional officer the ablity to act.

The types of corruption that can be committed by a corrections officer include bribery, inapproptiate

sexual contact, excessive force, and dealing in contraband. Prisoners are under the authority of their

correctional officers who are usally the only people they see all day as a result misconduct can occur

especailly sexual misconduct. Correctional officers will sell inmates goods from the outside, including illic

drugs, in order to make money of inmates. Correctional officers have power over inmates and can apply

excessive force or sucumb to bribes.

In order to reduce corruption in the correctional enviornment there needs to be cameras monitoring

the actions of the corectional staff. the cameras should be monitored by an outside security staff tasked

with watching for susipicous behavior amongst the cO's and inmates. this will deter the correctionl

staff from enaging in corruption as well as ensure if they do they will be caught.

Probation and parole officers have complete discetion over the criminal offenders under their authority.

At any time a probation or parole officer can revoide the probationer or parolee probation or parole and

have them put into jail. The probation and parole officer can require the offender to complete program or

complete community service as well as detrmine how times the offender should contact the probation

or parole officer every week or month. If a parole offiecer revokded the parole of a criminal becuase

they would not pay him $100 dollars, this would be unethical.

One ethical issues for probation officers would involve failing to keep in touch with the probationer

or parolee. Failing to properly supervise the offender is unethical and could result in danger to the

public. Another ethical issue is to large caeloads. when caseloads are to large offenders are not

adequately supervised. Lastly it is unethical for the probation officer to fail to ensure the offender has

access to community rehabiliation programs.

There are adult probation officer, juveine probation officers, and corrections probation officers.

Adult probation officers monitor the actions of adult offenders. Ethical issues arise when the probation o

fails to protect the interest of the offender due to a large caseload or a lack of interest. Correctional

probation officers have an ethical duty not to cause inmates any undue harm or to a abuse their

authority. Juvenile probation officers must be compassionate and kind and be dedicated to ensuring

positive change in the juvenile. Their actions must not cause the juvenile harm.

Abu Ghraib showed the world how correctional officers should never act in the prison enviornment.

The cruel and unethical behavior of the CO's horrifed the world despite the fact these prisoners are

members of terrorist groups. An ethical prison ensure inmate are removed rom society but are not

designed to inflict horrible pain and sufferring. America had an obligation to ensure prisoners were treate

humanely but failed. The prisoner held at Abu Ghraib sufferred unspeakble torture showing the world

the cruelty of the American military officer charged with their care.

In order to establish an ethical workplace their needs to be a clear ethical code of conduct and the

management must display ethical behavior. When the leaders in an organization are ethical the

employees will follow suit. Ethical leaders always choose the right path and encourage employees to

embrace the organizations ethical code.

Restorative justice is an approach where the goal is to repair the damage done to the victim

and community when a crime was committed. If a correctional officer causes harm to a prison inmate

they should take steps to repair their bad behavior but more importnatly should be removed from the

priosn enviornment. Correctinal officers must be ethical to ensure they do not abuse their authority or

engage in corrupt behavior.

A defense attorney, similair to any other type of lawyer, has a legal and ethicla oblibation, to keep

the communications they have with their client private. The confidentality rules of the defense attorney

is simple. Lawyers cannot reveal or disclose the confidence of their client without first getting

their permission. The only way a lawyer could or should reveal the confidence of their client is if they

were going to harm themselves or someone else. If a client revelas he has intentions of killing his wife,

the defense attorney has a legla obligation to call the police.

A just war is in retribution to a major harm caused to one country to another. A just war is the war

fought to save the lives of the innocent and to stop a dangerous global threat. for example the War on T

was fought to stop terrorists threatening everyone in Western society but also send a message that if

you kill American citizens you will pay for your crime.

The only argument in support of torture is to save the life of the innocent. Torture is never a good thing

but if torturing a terrorist will stop the death of tens of thousands of innocent victims it may be necesary

On the other hand torture is inhumane and wrong. While it is tempting to use torture to get instant results

it is wrong and cruel.

Cohen identifies justifying police action as being any action taken in order to prevent crime and

deter crime in the community. When their is a high crime rate it is improtant to address disorder or the

routine activites leading to crime in the community. Police action is a necessary response to a growing

crime rate or for postive social change.

The crime control approach refers to the obligation of police to control crime in the community.

Police control crime by identifying criminal offenders in the community, investigating crimes,

and arresting the perpretrator. Based on the public service model police officer are responsible for

establishing relationships with members of community and providing assistance whenever possible.

Natural law is a universal morla law or the inherent rights of citizens while positivist law refers to the

rule of law or hat is illegal or illegal. The weaknesses of natural law is it does not take in the different

cultural views of right and wrong or different religous viewpoints. The weakness of positivist law is

just becuase it is law does not always make it ethical and laws can be created to oppress certain

members of society.

Since the attacks on 9/11 their has been a comprehensive response to terrorism by the government.

The government created Homeland Security an agency tasked with gathering intelligence and stopping

any further terrorist attacks. legislation, known as the Patriot Act, has been enactd increasing the author

of police in terorist investigations. As a result many terrorist attacks have been thwarted.

Prison can be harmful if the prisoner is made to live in inhumane or dangerous conditions. Prisons

are dangerous places when their is inadequate prison staff to protect the inmates from abuse from

other inmates. Prisons are dangerous when the CO's are unethical and engage in corruptive

behaviors. This includes torturing prisoners or subjecting them to cruel or unusual punishment. When pris

are not safe or do not provide an ethical and structured enviornment they can be harmful.

system sufficency, defendant rehabiliation, and trial sufficency. Legal sufficency is a type of office

policy where the prosecutor finds if there is enough legal evidence to charge they should charge the

criminal defendant. System sufficency refers to getting cases through the system as quickly and

efficiently as possible while defendant rehabiliaton is the approach where the goal is to change the

criminal behavior through treatment and avoiding the criminal defendant going to court and the

corretional system.

Judges are public officals held to a very high standard by the criminal justice system and the public.

Judges face all types of ethical issues including work allocations, relationships with members

of the court, application of the law,and political goals. Determining how many hours to apply

to each case is an ethical concern along with avoiding favoritism due to prior relationships with members

of the court. How judges apply the law is an ethical concern especially if the judge has a political goals.