Courtroom History

Court History and Purpose

Sequcia Wren

CJA/224

June 4, 2012

Lou Wittmer

Court History and Purpose

The courts are a critical component of the criminal justice system. The courts decide what happens to individuals who have been charged with breaking the law (Siegel, Schmalleger, and Worrall, 2011). This paper will focus on describing the civil court and its purpose, it will define the dual court system, it will describe the role of the early legal codes, the common law, and precedent played in the development of courts and it will identify the role of courts in criminal justice today.

Civil courts resolve disputes between private parties (Siegel, Schmalleger, and Worrall, 2011). Civil courts are used when someone want to seek damages against another party. One can seek monetary damages after he or she found out that the other party was in the wrong for example, if someone hit him or her from behind and the court finds that the other driver was at fault the driver of the other vehicle can sue for monetary damages that was done to the vehicle. The courts could order the other party to perform certain acts or refrain from certain actions that is called injunctive relief (Siegel, Schmalleger, and Worrall, 2011). Today’s criminal justice courts hear civil cases that can start off with a small amount and end with a maximum amount depending on his or her state with a statute of limitation being three years. We have courts today to help solve conflicts and punish individual for breaking the law. There are five categories of civil law that is used to resolve civil litigation they are tort law, contract law, property law, law of succession, and family law. The main purpose of the courts is to protect citizens, uphold the law, resolve conflict and reinforce social norms (Siegel, Schmalleger, and Worrall, 2011).

The dual court system separates the federal and state courts (Siegel, Schmalleger, and Worrall, 2011). Dual federalism power is granted to the federal...