Course Description
If you think it is fun to look at how the law regulates police, just wait until you see how the law regulates lawyers (prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges)! The prosecution and adjudication course picks up where the "police practices" course leaves off: a criminal suspect has been identified, and often arrested. When do suspects have a right to a lawyer, and exactly which lawyer will they get if they do not already "have" one, or cannot afford to private counsel? Will the person be held or released on bail or their own recognizance? What are the constitutional and other limits on prosecutorial charging and declination decisions, including prudential and policy limits? What are the procedures governing the typical form of adjudication in the United States (guilty pleas, at >95%) and the most familiar on TV, but disappearing from the real world -- that would be the criminal trial.
This course will require a short analytic paper and several other brief writings (probably an op-ed, public testimony, draft legislation or a ballot initiative (one of these, not all!), and a short creative project.
Updated: 04/05/2011