The following is a reflective analysis of interesting aspects that I found about the pretrial release reading, prosecutorial charging reading, and grand jury/preliminary examination reading.
Pretrial release
There are a lot of thing that I learnt and found interesting about pretrial release. Pretrial release provides criminal defendants that are unable to post bail an opportunity to be interviewed to determine eligibility for release from jail under a supervised program. Pretrial release is mostly for defendants accused of minor crimes who can demonstrate that they live in a community and they pose no harm to the community at large. Pretrial release was set to those who cannot afford to post bail. The pretrial release choice lies with the judge to decide whether to release a defendant on bail or on a condition, to temporary detain defendant according to outlined procedures.
Prosecutorial charging
It was interesting to find that prosecutors exercise the mandate in three major areas of decision making which are; decision to file charges, decision to dismiss charges and plea bargaining. Once an arrest is made the case lies in the hands of a prosecutor whether to prosecute or drop charges. Two types of prosecution namely selective and vindictive prosecution exist. In selective prosecution a defendant is intentionally prosecuted on impermissible grounds exercising the following constitutional rights, race, religion, e.t.c.in vindictive prosecution serious charges are preferred on a defendant who exercised his/ her rights in a discriminatory way that harm/ injury to a party.
Grand jury
The Grand Jury was established by the constitution in the Fifth Amendment. It functions as a body of neighbors who aid states in bringing criminal to justice while protecting the innocent from unreal accusations. Grand jury consists of citizens usually chosen from the same pool as trial jurors that are sworn in by court to hear a case. It consists of people not less that twelve and not more than twenty three, here grand jury only indict with vote from majority.
Reference:
Unit Five Reading. The pretrial process chapter 10.
