Vocabulary notes

successive	последующий, последовательный
probation	условный срок
plea	заявление (суду)
shrewd	умный, хитрый
infuse	приводить к
arraignment	привлечение к суду
an irresolvable conflict in personality	неразрешимый личностный конфликт
to banish	высылать, прогонять
a pool of jurors	резерв присяжных
latitude	свобода
ludicrous	нелепый, смехотворный
malleability	податливость
calumny	клевета
to solic­it	приставать (к мужчине)

Task 3. Read the text again and make sure you know all underlined parts of the text. Give their Russian equivalents

Task 4. Answer the following questions:

1. What makes court appearances frustrating?

2. In what way can a shrewd de­fendant infuse delay into the disposition of his case?

3. In what cases will the court appoint counsel to represent a defendant?

4. What kind of juror does a lawyer really want?

5. Lawyers are afforded very broad latitude in asking questions, aren’t they?

6. What techniques can an unscrupulous lawyer employ to embarrass a witness and why?

Task 5. Agree or disagree with the following statements. Agreement or disagreement should be followed by some comment

1. More than 15 percent of all criminal indictments are disposed of by jury trial.

2. A shrewd de­fendant can infuse massive delay into the disposition of his case.

3. The judge never gives the new attorney any time to prepare for the case.

4. The victim is ex­cluded from the courtroom during jury selection.

5. What is taking so long is jury selection.

6. Every lawyer really wants a fair and impartial juror.

7. Only a few honest and truthful vic­tims of crimes have faced outrageous calumny at the hands of a cross-examiner.

Task 6. Compose the questions. Use the following words and word combinations from the text:

Jury trial, proceed to trial, to hire a lawyer, trial day, to appoint counsel, to prepare for the case, a pool of quali­fied jurors, broad latitude, to face, direct examina­tion, to engage in, to do justice

Task 7. Explain in English what the words and word combinations mean. Use them in your own sentences

Frustrating, to plead guilty, probation, to discharge someone, an irresolvable conflict, dutifully, to wonder, a felony, hypothetical situation, to be biased in one’s favor, to be ignorant of, interminable, direct examina­tion, to cross-examine, outrageous calumny, the heart of the matter

Task 8. Practice the speech patterns given below. Make up two sentences of your own on each pattern

1. There are many occasions where a victim will call the prose­cutor's office to ask when he is supposed to come back to court. "The case has already been con­cluded," he'll be told. He will likely be banished during all the evidentiary proceedings except his own testimony.

2. The defendant states that he is having trouble getting enough money to hire a lawyer and needs two more weeks. The suspect had difficulty trying to prove his alibi. The jury had hard time reaching a verdict.

3. I saw that type of questioning happen in the case of a rape victim. I saw another jury acquit a man who took a gun from his car, walked up the front steps of a house, and fired a bullet through the screen door, into the victim's heart.

4. Because the story is brief, direct examination consumes but a few minutes. It took him but a few days to complete all formalities.

5. After all, no lawyer really wants a fair and impartial juror. He wants one strongly biased in his favor. The road comes from the south and meets the one from Merryland. He gave the best seats to the ones who arrived first.

6. He sits and wonders what can be taking so long? Depending upon the law­yers involved, the process can take a day or longer. The courts didn't take long to decide that the law could cover any constitutional right.

Task 9. Make the summary of the text. Use the key words and word combinations

Text 4

Task 1. Answer the questions:

1. Why is the judiciary system not always effective in punishing criminals?

2. What is “presumptions of innocence”?

3. Why do some judges regularly impose some jail time for every felony?

Task 2. Read the text to get the main idea paying special attention to the underlined parts of the text (key words and word combinations)

"Not Guilty.” Why? After all is said and done, after what is often an outrageous stream of perjury, the jury retires and the victim waits, again, for them to reach a verdict. He may be shocked to hear it is, "Not guilty."

I remember a case involving a man who, after being ejected from a nightclub, shot a security guard in the back. He was identified by sev­eral people, including an eyewitness, and the gun was in his possession when he was arrested. The ballis­tics test established that the fatal bullet was fired from his gun. His defense — amnesia. The verdict — guilty of a misdemeanor.

I saw another jury acquit a man who took a gun from his car, walked up the front steps of a house, and fired a bullet through the screen door, into the victim's heart. The defense — self-defense.

How are such incredible miscar­riages of justice possible?

The answer is that jurors are frequently confused about their function. We (lawyers and judges) cow them with legal talk. The rules of law, which are based upon noth­ing but common sense and age-tested observations, somehow become a foreign language when delivered amid the solemnity of a trial. Jurors really do not understand that they are simply supposed to find the truth and let their verdict speak the truth. They are so overwhelmed with presumptions of innocence, standards of guilt beyond a reason­able doubt and the like, that they just do not know what they are supposed to do.

Many criminal cases go awry because jurors are afraid to make a decision. Fearful that they might be inadequate to judge a case, they will wash their hands of the possibility of error by finding not guilty a defendant who plainly should be convicted.

Crime Must Not Pay. Let us suppose, however, that truth about a crime has been determined through trial, and a guilty verdict rendered. At this point, the importance of sound sentencing cannot be overstated. It is perhaps the most significant and most difficult thing a trial judge does.

I have sentenced about 2000 people. I hope that justice was done. I have some idea of the effect of the sentences on myself: I know that the longer I sat, the meaner I grew.

Right now a person who has been through the system and is contemplating a crime probably views things as follows: (1) if I do, it I won't get caught, (2) if I get caught I won't get prosecuted, (3) if I get prosecuted I won't get convicted, (4) if I get convicted I won't go to prison, (5) if I go to prison it won't be for very long.

The fact of the matter is that these assumptions are strongly based on reality. Less than one out of seven burglaries, for example, is "solved by arrest" (which, of course, is not the same thing as conviction and imprisonment). What it means is that six out of seven burglaries are never solved.

Because burglary is a field with specialists, the mathematical probability can be pushed close to a prop­osition that a man can commit six burglaries before being caught on the seventh. If the court system regularly gives to the first-offender a probated sentence, he can commit six more burglaries while on probation before being caught on the fourteenth. At that time he is like­ly to go to jail for a few months! Fourteen burglaries at the cost of a few months in jail. That is no cost at all, considering the fruits of the crimes.

Years on the bench punctuated by countless bond forfeitures and probation revocations have persuaded me that the criminals are winning. While we in the black robes were trying to apply the law in a humane and rehabilitative manner, the thieves and bullies were laughing at us. In all probability, our well-intentioned efforts to provide a "second chance" have encouraged more criminals to com­mit more crimes.

In my view, the individual be­fore the court for sentencing is important, but it is of greater im­portance that the public be protect­ed by a sound sentencing policy. I believe this must be a policy that demonstrates, unmistakably, that the cost of crime to the criminal substantially outweighs the benefit of crime.

Now I do not advocate lengthy sentences for property crimes the first time around, but I most vigor­ously suggest that a community cannot protect itself unless all its judges regularly impose some jail time for every felony, jail time to increase at a geometric rate de­pending on the number of prior convictions.

Currently, imprisonment is the only thing we have to demonstrate the cost of crime, and we must use it with greater consistency. Granted, the rate of recidivism for people released from prison can be argued as strong proof that correctional institutions do not correct. But at least prisons shift the locus of crime from innocent people on the street to fellow criminals behind bars.

I believe that without a solid and relatively uniform reaction on the part of the sentencing bench, the criminals are bound to win. Sen­tencing must prove to the public at large that crime does not pay.