Constitutional Criminal Law Courses
- Officials in the crimnal justice system must abide by the U.S. Constitution.law courts image by Peter Helin from Fotolia.com
Several constitutional amendments govern the criminal justice process. Anyone wishing to practice law must take the Criminal Law and Procedure on the Multistate Bar Examination. Every lawyer should have an understanding and an appreciation of the policies and process of criminal law. According to Georgetown University, "Such an understanding and appreciation is particularly important for the significant number of [law] graduates who will later become judges, legislators and executive branch officials with responsibility for developing or administering criminal justice." - Criminal Law examines society's control of undesirable behavior through the law. This class serves as a survey of the different types of criminal offenses that a person can commit. The class also focuses on the general elements of each criminal offense. The student learns criminal law in the context of common law versus statutory law. The course may focus on state statutes or suggested statutes of the Model Penal Code. The course also gives some attention to criminal culpability and punishment as well as the contrast between tort (civil) law and criminal law.
- Criminal procedure examines the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth amendments to the Constitution in relation to criminal justice. The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable search and seizure. The Fifth Amendment protects a suspect from self-incrimination, and the Sixth Amendment guarantees a suspect the right to an attorney. The course tracks the criminal justice process from the reasonable suspicion stop-and-frisk to the Miranda warning given at the time of the arrest, including the suspect's right to an attorney. The students learn the constitutional doctrines used to regulate police behavior. These doctrines also govern the admissibility of evidence against a suspect at trial. If a police officer has engaged in misconduct that violated the suspect's constitutional rights, the evidence cannot be admitted at trial.
- Advanced Criminal Procedure picks up where Criminal Procedure left off. This course examines the process from the time a suspect is charged with a crime all the way through the post-conviction stage. The course may cover the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in charging a suspect, the preliminary examination and grand jury, the severance of defendants and charges, the right to a speedy trial, the right to confrontation, and the presentation of evidence at trial, among other things. Because this is an upper-level course, law schools require that students take Criminal Procedure or an equivalent course before registering for Advanced Criminal Procedure.
