'Courts Grant Offenders Rights: Slowing Down Investigation?' - Essay Sample

Introduction

Courts are ancient tools that administer justice in society. Surprisingly, the same courts seem to grant the perpetrators offenses so many rights. For instance, when an offender gets arrested, he/she have the solemn rights of keeping quiet unless a personal attorney is present. Such laws hinder or slow down investigation since the investigating officer has to wait for the offender’s lawyer to be present for an interrogation to begin. The bill also restrains the police officer from uttering anything that might be deemed offensive to the perpetrators.

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Furthermore, the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits an investigative officer from performing a quick search at their homes without a warrant. Such an Amendment gives the offender many rights without considering the rights of victims. Also, the investigative officers’ work is hampered by this kind of law that seeks to protect offenders. Thus, the police officer might not be able to immediately obtain incriminating evidence from the offender (Lippke, 2017). Therefore, the criminal has the upper hand since he/she can destroy the evidence before a search warrant is issued.

Should courts be more concerned with the rights of victims or the rights of the offenders?

The primary purpose of the courts is to ensure justice gets administered after a victim gets offended. Therefore, it is to argue that the courts should be more concerned with the rights of the victims than offenders. The victims must follow all the proceedings of the court – since they will see this as goodwill to ensure that justice is served (Siegel & Worrall, 2018). The courts should also give the victims a chance to narrate the whole ordeal, and if the offender is found guilty, the victims ought to become compensated.

Nevertheless, the formulate law ensures the rights of everyone gets protected. Therefore, it is essential to protect the rights of the victim since the code is also a tool for reforming evil characters in society. Therefore as such, the offenders deserve a chance to a fair hearing while in the court of law. The law further stipulates that offenders have the rights to processes like taking a plea and having a chance to cross-examine the victim. Nonetheless, the law must be respected at all times because it is the only defining tool that ensures every person’s rights gets observed.

Have the police been “handcuffed” by the courts and prevented from doing their job most efficiently?

No, the police officers are not “handcuffed” by the courts in doing their jobs. Courts are there to ensure the rule of law becomes observed as well as protecting the rights of the victims. Also, without the courts, the police service could be using excessive force to punish the offender hence depriving them of their human rights. Evidence shows that many police offices use a lot of power when maintaining order, especially when dealing with Blacks – thus aggravating the anger between the police and the Africa American (Byrd, 2017).

For instance, a police officer shot and killed an unarmed eighteen-year-old black man on August 9, 2014 (Halpern, Remnick & Cobb, 2015). Unfortunately, the police officer walked free since it was deemed he shot the man in self-defense. The above case shows why the court must regulate the police service’s actions. Since if the police service is left to operate on its own, there is a big chance, their efforts will undermine the law. Therefore, it can become concluded that the police need to enforce the law by operating within the confines of the law.

References

Byrd, D. (2017). Challenging Excessive Force: Why Police Officers Disproportionately Exercise Excessive Force towards Blacks and Why This Systemic Problem Must End. Ala. CR & CLL Rev., 8, 93.

Halpern, J., Remnick, D., & Cobb, J. (2015, August 3). The Man Who Shot Michael Brown. Retrieved May 22, 2020, from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/10/the-cop

Lippke, R. L. (2017). Criminal offenders and right forfeiture. In Prisoners’ Rights (pp. 59-70). Routledge.

Siegel, L. J., & Worrall, J. L. (2018). Essentials of criminal justice. Cengage Learning.