Before and After the Central Park Jogger: When Legal Cases Become Social Causes

Contexts ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Chancer
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
Central Park ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Social Causes

A number of recent high-profile criminal cases have served as vehicles for public debates about race, gender, and class prejudice. What are the implications of these cases for the legal system and for the political activists who become involved with them?

scholarly journals The Legal Impact of Plea Bargain in Settlement of High Profile Financial Criminal Cases in Nigeria

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 161
Author(s):  
Paul Atagamen Aidonojie ◽  
Anne Oyenmwosa Odojor ◽  
Patience Omohoste Agbale
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Plea Bargain ◽  
The Public ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Legal Effect ◽  
Survey Questionnaires

Plea bargain has been globally accepted as a useful criminal prosecutorial tool in accelerating the prosecution of minor criminal cases. However, it has been observed that the introduction of a plea bargain into the Nigerian criminal justice system tends to aid the ruling class in looting from the public treasury and escaping justice. Given these legal anomalies, the study used online survey questionnaires sent to four hundred and five respondents (randomly selected) residing in Nigeria in ascertaining the Nigerian citizens view on the legal effect of using a plea bargain in resolving high profile financial crime cases. Descriptive and analytical statistics were used to analyse the respondents’ responses. The study, therefore, found that though plea bargain is a useful criminal prosecutorial tool in resolving minor criminal cases, it is unsuitable in resolving high profile criminal financial cases as it tends to involve a hide and seek game which makes a mockery of the Nigeria Legal System. It is, therefore, concluded and recommended that the concept of a plea bargain in Nigeria legal system should not be used in resolving high-profile criminal financial cases, as it tends to give leverage to those looting public funds.

Law in action in classical Athens

1985 ◽  
Vol 105 ◽  
pp. 40-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Osborne
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
The Other ◽  
Narrow Sense ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Legal Process ◽  
Interested Party ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
Technical Aspects ◽  
The One

The fine modern scholarship on Athenian law has concentrated on (a) the scope of particular laws, and (b) the technical aspects of the legal process. This paper attempts to examine how the legal system worked in practice.The Athenians classified legal cases in various ways. On the one hand there was a division by subject matter between private cases (dikai idiai) and public cases (dikai dēmosiai), and on the other there was a division according to the procedure involved. There were a number of specialised procedures, but the most important procedural division was between those cases which anyone was free to bring (graphai) and those which only an interested party could bring (dikai in the narrow sense). These divisions on grounds of subject matter and on grounds of procedure overlap, but they are distinct and neither corresponds to the modern European legal division between civil and criminal cases.

scholarly journals ILLICIT JUSTICE: Aspirational-Strategic Subjects and the Political Economy of Domestic Violence Law in India

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 444-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Poulami Roychowdhury
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Institutional Environment ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
The Political ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
Legal Procedure ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
The Law

Criminal cases against domestic violence in India frequently result in unlawful “compromises” where litigants breach legal procedure and negotiate out-of-court settlements. Using ethnographic and interview data, this Article analyzes how legal cases become extralegal settlements. I argue that India’s legal environment engenders an “aspirational-strategic” legal consciousness among survivors, who simultaneously believe they deserve what the law promises while distrusting legal procedure and law enforcement personnel. Their bifurcated vision of the law leads them to negotiate illicit settlements. These findings indicate that expansions in legal rights can have contradictory effects on rule of law. Depending on the political economy of the legal institutional environment, citizens may respond to rights by simultaneously adopting new norms while ignoring legal rules and procedure.

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