Author Question: Identify the nature and circumstances of the right to appeal a conviction. What will be an ideal ... (Read 48 times)

jparksx · **on:** Aug 16, 2018

Identify the nature and circumstances of the right to appeal a conviction.

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Summarize the limits on the rights of offenders at sentencing, and explain the reasons for the limits.

What will be an ideal response?

AaaA · **Reply #1 on:** Aug 16, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Convicted offenders don't have a constitutional right to appeal their conviction. Even
though there is no constitutional right to appeal, every jurisdiction has created the
statutory right to appeal. However, the United States Supreme Court has upheld
denying a defendant a right to a lawyer for his appeal to the State Supreme Court. In
doing so, the Court distinguished between the trial and appellate stages of criminal
proceeding. The trial process requires appointment of counsel for anyone too poor to
afford one, so that the defendant can adequately defend against the charges the state
has brought against him/her.
However, after a conviction, the tables are turned. Then it is the defendant who
initiates the process, seeking to overcome the guilty finding made in the trial court
below. Thus, the defendant does not need their attorney as a shield against the state
hauling them into court and incorrectly convicting them, but rather as a sword to try to
upset what is now a presumptively correct determination of guilt.

Answer to Question 2

When defendants become convicted offenders, they lose many safeguards they had
during the trial. Most of the procedural safeguards written into the Constitution were
originally intended to protect abuses of defendant's rights during the trial itself. Also,
giving too much attention to defendant's rights at sentencing would restrict the
flexibility judges need to impose the right sentenceone that would satisfy the
objectives of retribution and/or punishment.
Flexibility in sentencing allows trial judges to use information outside the official record
of a trial. Offenders have no right either to confront or to cross-examine people who
have supplied unfavorable sentencing information about them. Trial judges can also
consider the conduct of defendants during the trial.
Two rights defendants don't give up at sentencing are the right to counsel and the right
to equal protection of the law. The right to counsel assures that they will have
assistance in arguing for the appropriate sentence. Equal protection assures that
offenders are treated relatively equally. Thus, the court could not sentence an offender
too poor to pay a fine to prison while freeing those people able to pay the fine.