Court Jurisdiction System-Assignment 9

Running head: ASSIGNMENT 9
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ASSIGNMENT 9
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author’s note:

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Question-answers
1. Attorney-client Privilege: It has referred to such a privilege between a lawyer and
his client regarding their communication. This communication should be kept
confidential with the attorney (Bryans, 2015). This Privilege only exists if there is
arisen such attorney-client relationship.
2. Bench Trial: it is a process of adjudication of criminal cases in the US where the
judges have played a role of a jury who has found the fact of the case to make a
decision or adjudication.
3. Best Evidence: It is a rule of the US justice system, and it applies when a party of the
dispute has wanted to admit a document as evidence, but such original document is
not in his hand. He should make a reasonable excuse to the court.
4. Closing Argument: It is one of the concluding statement of the counsel to the parties
to the dispute to reiterate the essential arguments to the jury (Grant, 2019).
5. Competent to Testify: It refers to testify the competency of the witness in a case.
There is no such moral or mental qualification to testify the witnesses, that is, who
can be capable of being a witness.
6. Deadlocked Jury: This is one of the jurors in the judicial system where they can not
able to agree on a verdict of the court after deliberation, as well as they are unable to
reach to the requirement of supermajority or unanimity (Abramson, 2015).
7. Death qualification of a jury: It is a category of jurors who is not strictly opposed to
such a death penalty in a criminal case but not in every criminal case.

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8. Direct Evidence: It is one type of evidence where the evidence has supported a truth
of any assertion directly without need of any other shreds of evidence.
9. Direct verdict: It is a rule of the trial judge, and it can be entertained when he thinks
that there is certainly not any lawful adequate evidentiary source for a jury for
reaching to the other conclusion.
10. DNA Testing: it is a procedure of identifying parents of a person or correlation with
the real parents (Buckleton, Bright, & Taylor, 2016). However, the court may order to
conduct a DNA test for identifying parentage of a child.
11. Eyewitness testimony: It has referred to a testimony of a person before the court who
has watched the incident in his eyes. It has used as a legal word.
12. Forensic experts: They are one type of scientists who collect, domain and analyze
various scientific evidence during an investigation. They have helped in a criminal
procedure in providing their knowledge and examination in such evidence.
13. Impeachment: It is a procedure of a legislative body to charge against any other
government official (Sunstein, 2019). It is almost same as an accusation in the law of
crime, and fundamentally, it is a declaration of charges in contradiction of the official.
14. Indirect Evidence: It is one type of evidence, which is relied on the interference of
other circumstances that are not direct. It has a great value in criminal law as
circumstantial evidence, such as fingerprint in a crime scene, DNA analysis and many
others.
15. The judgment of Acquittal: it has rested on a want or lack of evidence for such a
conviction of the defendant in a trial (Kurland, 2015). The phrase means that the court

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has acquitted a defendant from all charges, as he does not find any reasonable
evidence against him.
16. Leading question: it has been used in common law to confirm some important and
basic information from any witness of any incident before the trial. These questions
may often be answerable in a yes-no manner.
17. Marital Privilege: it is the right of a spouse to refuse providing any testimony or
evidence in any legal procedure against another spouse (Sonnier, Lassar, & Greene,
2016). The federal rules on such evidence have provided such Privilege of any marital
relationship.
18. Motion for a New Trial: A party to the dispute can request to the court for a new
trial after the judgment of a lawsuit. There should be an argument that the judge has
made any legal error in that judgment.
19. Proof beyond a Reasonable Doubt: It has meant that such a proof is proximate to
such an absolute certainty of the incident. The judge, as well as a jury, can admit it as
evidence of committing a crime.
20. Real evidence: It refers to evidence, which is based on the fact or physical
characteristic of an object. As an example, a murder weapon in a murder scene is real
evidence and helpful for the criminal trial.
21. Rebuttal witnesses: It refers to those persons who come to the court as witnesses of
an incident and who can be called for rebutting testimony, which is already presented
(Maurer, 2017). The witness of a case may provide any irrelevant incident or
character of the accused.

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22. Right of Confrontation: The sixth time amendment of the US constitution has
provided a right to the accused that they can able to confront those witnesses who
have testified against him.
23. Right to Cross-Examination: Rule 43 of the federal rules on criminal procedure has
guaranteed a right to cross-examine the witness of the prosecution subject to some
restrictions (Myers, 2017). It has promoted fairness in the structure of the justice
system in the US.
24. Similar Fact Evidence: It has established various conditions in the evidence law
under which some factual evidence or information of the past misconduct of an
accused will be admitted before the trial in this contemporary issue.
25. Standby Counsel: It refers to an attorney who has raised his right of self-
representation to assist his client. If the client is unable to conduct his defense then
the decision-maker may order that counsel for taking over such defense.
26. Testimonial evidence: It is a testimony of a person, which has been offered for
proving the truthfulness of an asserted matter (Neculcea, & Ionescu, 2017). Such
testimonial evidence may not be reliable before such court.
27. Venire: It is a group of Jurors who help to the judge for making any decision in a
criminal case. This venire has to be selected by the appropriate authority. They are
also called as a jury pool.
28. Verdict: The jury of a case submits their fact-findings on matters, as well as
questions of the judge on the fact of the case. It can be regarded as a conclusion of a
case.

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29. Voir Dire: It refers to an oath, which is taken by the jurors of any case to provide the
truth and say it (Marder, 2015). The object of such a term is to maintain honesty
before the court of law.
Review questions and answers:
1. The structure of Criminal Justice of America should consist of more credibility in
conduct of voir dire by the judges is a challenge for cause permitted (Johnson, 2015).
Such a challenge for cause has been put to the system to disqualify a juror for being a
family member of the defendant. However, it should be implemented to reduce
biasness in the judiciary system.
2. Every defendant in a criminal case has been presumed innocent unless proven guilty
(Garrett, 2015). Any defense attorney should consider the following factors to advise
his client for testifying on his behalf at trial. The defendant should be calm at the time
of examination at trial. He should not tell anything irrelevant to the case and should
not reply anything with anger.
3. Tom Clerk J, in the case of Estes vs. Texas has made a statement towards the
communication technology. According to him, such public communication
techniques may bring a change in the fairness of the criminal trials. Communication
media within the trial may be inconsistent with the right of the fair trial of a
petitioner. The idea to impose any communication media technique may be a burden
to justify freedom of the parties in a dispute.
4. The trial judge may allow summarizing such evidence for the benefit of the jury
before deliberating retire of jurors (Schwartz, & Sober, 2017). There is an advantage

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that the jurors can be able to identify the issue quickly, and it does not waste valuable
time for trial. There is a disadvantage that it may be diverted their thinking power on
that evidence. It is not unconstitutional.

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References
Abramson, J. (2015). Jury Deliberation: Fair and Foul. In Jury Ethics (pp. 195-232). Routledge.
Bryans, H. S. (2015). Employed lawyers and the attorney-client Privilege: Parsing the trade-
offs. U. Tol. L. Rev., 47, 109.
Buckleton, J. S., Bright, J. A., & Taylor, D. (Eds.). (2016). Forensic DNA evidence
interpretation. CRC press.
Estes v. Texas, (1965) 381 U.S. 532
Garrett, B. L. (2015). The Myth of the Presumption of Innocence. Tex. L. Rev. See Also, 94, 178.
Grant, A. J. (2019). Mirroring the Trial: Making Sense of the Law of Closing Argument in
Criminal Cases. W. New Eng. L. Rev., 41, 7.
Johnson, V. B. (2015). Presumed Fair-Voir Dire on the Fundamentals of Our Criminal Justice
System. Seton Hall L. Rev., 45, 545.
Kurland, A. H. (2015). I Would Not Be Convicted by a Jury of My Peers (Because the Judge
Erroneously Granted my Motion for Judgment of Acquittal): Evans v. Michigan and the
Future of the Pre-Verdict Judgment of Acquittal. U. Tol. l. Rev., 47, 279.
Marder, N. S. (2015). Juror bias, voir dire, and the judge-jury relationship. Chi.-Kent L. Rev., 90,
927.
Maurer, D. (2017). The Rebuttal Witnesses: From Agency to Norms to Diagnosis. In Crisis,
Agency, and Law in US Civil-Military Relations (pp. 101-108). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Myers, J. E. (2017). Cross-examination: A defense. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 23(4),
472.

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Neculcea, M., & Ionescu, B. (2017). Testimonial Evidence. Perspectives and
Confluences. Journal of legal studies, 19(33), 75-83.
Schwartz, D. S., & Sober, E. (2017). The conjunctions problem and the logic of jury
findings. Wm. & Mary L. Rev., 59, 619.
Sonnier, B., Lassar, W. M., & Greene, E. (2016). An examination of the impact of an evidentiary
privilege protecting corporate whistleblowers on intention to report wrongdoing. Journal of
Accounting, Ethics and Public Policy, 17(2).
Sunstein, C. R. (2019). Impeachment: A citizen's guide. Penguin Books.