Research

Research another country's approach to determine the truth in a criminal proceeding and describe how it differs from the American jury system. Which do you feel is superior' Why' The country I chosen to do was Germany on how they approach to determine the truth in a criminal proceeding. The German legal system is divided in to three levels of regular courts. “One is called the Amtsgericht (Petty court) this one deals with less serious cases, both civil and criminal. The second level is more important cases are tried in the first instance before a Landgericht, here translated as "Country Court." The Country Courts also operate in some cases as the courts to which appeals from the Petty Courts may be taken. From the Country Courts, appeals go to the Oberlandesgericht, or "Court of Appeals." Each of these courts is designated by the name of the town or city where it sits. For historical reasons, the Court of Appeals for Berlin is termed the Kammergericht (literally, "Chamber Court"). The court of final appeal was called the Reichsgericht, or "Supreme Court." It was renamed the Bundesgerichtshof, or "Federal Supreme Court," after World War II. At the same time, the function of deciding upon the compatibility of legislation with the new constitution was separately assigned to the Bundesverfassungsgericht, or "Federal Constitutional Court." Germany also operates specialized court systems for labour law, administrative law, tax law, and social security matters. During the Third Reich, there existed a so-called People’s Court (Volkgerichtshof) and other special courts for the speedy and brutal disposition of political offenses (Elements of the German Legal System, n.d).” German trial is different than American proceeding. A German criminal trial began with the investigatory processing of the state attorney not like ours with an indictment by a grand jury. “Under the so-called legality principle, a German state’s attorney who receives convincing evidence that a crime has been committed is required to institute proceedings.”Prosecutorial discretion" is alien to German theory. Whereas a British or American trial; when conducted before a jury, must start at the beginning (since the jurors are as new to the case as the spectators), a German trial starts with the file. The trial is kept much more tightly under control by German judges, who do most of the examining of witnesses and call for documentary evidence. They are not the relatively passive umpires between contesting attorneys that one sees in courtrooms in the United States, and somewhat less often in Great Britain. Occasionally, a criminal case is tried before an appellate court – as in the case of the Reichstag fire trial, which was tried before the Supreme Court itself (Elements of the German Legal System, n.d).” The German law has the Civil Code, the Commercial Code, the Criminal code, the Civil Procedure Rules, and the Criminal Procedure Rules. I say Germany is more superior because like America legal system to me has too much openly partisan and political. I like how the prosecution and the defense may appeal their case if it is an unfavorable outcome but in the US only the defense can appeal. In American system if the suspect confesses, they will get the same punishment but in Germany, if they confess the person gets a lower punishment. Reference Element of German legal System; http://www.vanuatu.usp.ac.fj/courses/LA332_Jurisprudence/Articles/German_legalsyst.htm Boldt, A., 2010; a subjective comparison of Germany and the United States; http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/us-d.html