Main Content
Criminal Legal System Flowcharts, Cartoon & News Article on Luigi Mangione Case
The American criminal legal system is unique in both its scope and its organization. Before we start discussing what conduct is criminal (or whether particular conduct should be criminal) it is important to understand exactly what the criminal legal system is, and why more people, including me, no longer refer to it as the "criminal justice system."
Flowchart A: The so-called leaky pipe model of the system is crucial to understanding the practical realities of the administration of the American system.
The chart is here to give you a sense of the vastness and complexity of the criminal justice but, as the note indicates, it is not to scale. For example, as this table shows, of the 79,704 criminal defendants in federal court in the year studied, 71,550 pled guilty, while only 1,879 trials were held.
Flowchart B: This flow chart and accompanying text gives more detail about how these stages of the criminal legal system actually usually play out in reality. Compare it to the other, more conventional, flowchart, and feel free to--although you are not required to--browse the rest of the content of this valuable new resource.
Who has the real power in the criminal system? This cartoon shows that - in contemporary times - it is the prosecutor.
This book, and all H2O books, are Creative Commons licensed for sharing and re-use with the exception of certain excerpts. Any excerpts from the Restatements of the Law, Principles of the Law, and the Model Penal Code are copyright by The American Law Institute. Excerpts are reproduced with permission, not as part of a Creative Commons license.