WK 3 Individual COURTROOM WORKGROUP
Courtroom Workgroup Paper
Eileen Ritter
CJA/204
July 7, 2014
Carlos Zuniga
Courtroom Workgroup Paper
One of the important roles a judge, a criminal prosecutor, and a criminal defense attorney will carry out is called, a “courtroom work group”. The courtroom work group interact on a daily basis by these three entities joining together to converse over matters such as if the case has probable cause to convict the offender or whether or not if there is enough evidence to go forward with a criminal trial. Normally, the prosecutor will try to persuade the defense that they do not have a case or try to talk the defense into a guilty plea or possible bail. In other words, anything they can do to speed up the process with various types of negotiations. The judge has to remain ethical and fair to see both sides of the prosecution and defense to determine if the negotiations are valid enough to go through with. Even though the judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney are the main officials of the courtroom work group, we cannot forget about other members that play a part as well. The minor (respectfully) members or other members that make up a courtroom work group are the court clerk, the bailiff, and the court reporter. The court clerk upholds all the records while the court reporter makes sure he/she transcribes the official proceedings. The bailiff helps to keep court order throughout a trial. Although I can understand how the main officers discuss the case and try to solve it without a trial, I feel that every case should be heard. The major problem with this though is time and money. In order for every offender to have a case without the prosecutor trying to convince the defense into something else, there would have to be a lot more courthouses with a lot more main officers. The only way this would ever happen is to hike up the taxes and no one wants their taxes to increase.
Although these three officers work together in coming to a conclusion, they have
Eileen Ritter
CJA/204
July 7, 2014
Carlos Zuniga
Courtroom Workgroup Paper
One of the important roles a judge, a criminal prosecutor, and a criminal defense attorney will carry out is called, a “courtroom work group”. The courtroom work group interact on a daily basis by these three entities joining together to converse over matters such as if the case has probable cause to convict the offender or whether or not if there is enough evidence to go forward with a criminal trial. Normally, the prosecutor will try to persuade the defense that they do not have a case or try to talk the defense into a guilty plea or possible bail. In other words, anything they can do to speed up the process with various types of negotiations. The judge has to remain ethical and fair to see both sides of the prosecution and defense to determine if the negotiations are valid enough to go through with. Even though the judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney are the main officials of the courtroom work group, we cannot forget about other members that play a part as well. The minor (respectfully) members or other members that make up a courtroom work group are the court clerk, the bailiff, and the court reporter. The court clerk upholds all the records while the court reporter makes sure he/she transcribes the official proceedings. The bailiff helps to keep court order throughout a trial. Although I can understand how the main officers discuss the case and try to solve it without a trial, I feel that every case should be heard. The major problem with this though is time and money. In order for every offender to have a case without the prosecutor trying to convince the defense into something else, there would have to be a lot more courthouses with a lot more main officers. The only way this would ever happen is to hike up the taxes and no one wants their taxes to increase.
Although these three officers work together in coming to a conclusion, they have