Criminal Justice System: Key Terms and Concepts

Chapter 5: Key Legal Terms

  • Plea bargain: To agree to plead guilty because of a promise, specifically a promise that benefits the defendant
  • Preliminary hearing: A hearing held by the court to argue if there is enough evidence for the case to go to court
  • Reasonable & probable grounds: the point where credibly-based evidence replaces suspicion in a case

Chapter 6: Courtroom Procedures

  • Adversarial system- the system of solving disputes within a court, a government-ran
  • Jury- a group of people brought together to find a decision in a case, guilty or not guilty
  • Hung jury- a jury that cannot decide on a verdict
  • Challenge for cause- The system that eliminates potential bias within a jury
  • Voir dire- a hearing within hearing that determines evidence’s admissibility or something like witnesses being able to use notes
  • Perjury- someone who made a deliberate false statement under the oath in court
  • Direct & circumstantial evidence- testimony of an eyewitness & evidence that allows the lawmaker to find a reasonable conclusion with no concrete or eyewitness evidence
  • Examination in chief- direct examination
  • Cross examination-allows for the lawyer of the opposing side to question your witness
  • Leading Q- a question used in a direct examination that is attempting to lead the witness into a certain answer
  • Hearsay- something the witness heard from somebody else (info not included in their testimony)
  • Character evidence- evidence that allows the lawmaker to make an inference that the defendant is a certain character
  • Charge to the jury- The instructions given by the juror to the jury that include evidence & law stuff

Chapter 8: Criminal Defenses

  • Alibi- a background of the place where somebody was at a certain time during a crime or such
  • Automatism- Bodily motions that are not consciously done (breathing, sleepwalking)
  • NCR- the defendant did not have the mental fortitude in order to understand the crime they were committing
  • Intoxication- the consumption of anything that alters the mind or judgement of somebody
  • BWD- A psychological condition that somebody develops when abused
  • Self defence- when somebody has to defend themselves from an IMMINENT threat
  • Necessity- There was no other reaction but to defend yourself in that way because of imminent danger or such
  • Duress- When somebody commits an offence under the direct threat or danger of somebody else
  • Provocation- when a person is considered to have committed a criminal act partly because of a preceding set of events that might cause a reasonable individual to lose self control
  • Double jeopardy- Prevents a person from being tried again on similar or the same charges after a trial

Chapter 9: Sentencing and Punishment

  • Deterrence- the theory of sentencing (to punish will prevent in the future
  • Segregation or separation- the separation of inmates in prison
  • Incarceration- the act of putting somebody in jail for their crimes
  • Rehabilitation- The treatment & reeducation of an offender in order to restore them to their non crime self
  • Recidivism- A person’s relapse into crime, after incarceration & rehabilitation
  • Mitigating circumstances- Factors that lessen the severity or culpability of a criminal act, including, but not limited to, defendant’s age or extreme mental or emotional disturbance at the time the crime was committed, mental retardation, & lack of a prior criminal record
  • Aggravating circumstances- Aggravating circumstances refers to the factors that increase the severity or culpability of a criminal act. Typically, the presence of an aggravating circumstance will lead to a harsher penalty for a convicted criminal
  • Absolute discharge- An absolute discharge is the lowest‑level adult sentence that an offender can get. If an offender gets an absolute discharge, a finding of guilt is made but no conviction is registered, & they are not given any conditions to follow
  • Conditional discharge- You will not be on probation. A conditional discharge means your record won’t show a conviction if you meet conditions the judge sets. The conditions come in a probation order that can last from 1 to 3 years
  • Probation- Probation is a type of sentence & an alternative to jail. It is court order to do (or not do) certain things for a period of time. It is usually called a probation order. An offender who gets a conditional discharge or a suspended sentence will always have a probation order that they must follow
  • Community service order- a requirement in a sentence where the accused has to give a certain amount of community service hours
  • Restitution- requires the offender to pay the offended because of the crime that they committed
  • Peace bond- A court order to keep the peace & be on good behaviour for a certain amount of time
  • Parole- Parole is the conditional release of prisoners before they complete their sentence. Paroled prisoners are supervised by a public official, usually called a parole officer. If paroled prisoners violate the conditions of their release, they may be returned to prison
  • Dangerous offender- a pattern of persistent aggressive behaviour that shows a substantial degree of indifference to the consequences; &, o the brutal nature of the offence compels the conclusion that the offender is unlikely to be inhibited by normal standards of behavioural restraint