Vocabulary notes

misdemeanor	мелкое преступление
miscar­riage	ошибка, несправедливость
to cow	запугивать, устрашать
to be overwhelmed with	овладевать переполнять (о чувствах)
to go awry	сбиться с правильного пути
sound sentencing
assumption	предположение, допущение
bond forfeiture	подделка облигаций, финансовых обязательств
revocation	отмена, аннулирование
bullies	хулиган, сутенер
conviction	судимость, судебный приговор
consistency	логичность, последовательность
locus of crime	место преступления
at large	в целом, весь

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 may shock the victim?

2. What are jurors frequently confused about?

3. What do jurors not understand about the rules of law?

4. What are jurors supposed to do?

5. What is the most significant and most difficult thing a trial judge does?

6. What is the mathematical probability for a man who commits burglaries? What are his chances to go to prison?

7. What makes the judge convinced that the criminals are winning?

8. What must prove to the public at large that crime does not pay?

Task 5. Agree or disagree with the following statements:

1. Jurors are frequently confused about their function.

2. The rules of law are based upon noth­ing but tradition and age-tested observations.

3. Jurors understand that they are simply supposed to find the truth.

4. Sentencing is perhaps the most significant and most difficult thing a trial judge does.

5. A man can commit a lot of burglaries before being caught.

6. Well-intentioned efforts to provide a "second chance" have encouraged more criminals to rehabilitate.

7. Judges should impose some jail time for every felony.

Task 6. Ask the questions to which the following statements are the answers:

1. He was identified by sev­eral people, including an eyewitness.

2. His defense was amnesia.

3. The verdict was guilty of a misdemeanor.

4. He has sentenced about 2000 people.

5. Less than one out of seven burglaries is "solved by arrest".

6. Jurors just do not know what they are supposed to do.

7. Burglary is a field with specialists.

8. That is no cost at all, considering the fruits of the crimes.

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

To reach a verdict, to be ejected from, an eyewitness, amnesia, to be confused about, to cow somebody with, common sense, to go awry, to wash their hands of, to overstate, to contemplate, the first-offender, a probated sentence, countless, prior convictions, recidivism, correctional institutions, the sentencing bench

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

1. He may be shocked to hear, "Not guilty." The victim was surprised to see the offender get away with a probation sentence. The witness was shocked to hear the lawyer’s insinuations.

2. I remember a case involving a man who, after being ejected from a nightclub, shot a security guard in the back. 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. He can commit six more burglaries while on probation before being caught on the fourteenth.

3. 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.

4. 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. There now are so many courts and so many decisions that no one can keep them all straight.

5. 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.

6. 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. . That is why I proposed that all those convicted of a second serious sexual or violent crime automatically get a life sentence.

Some of whom asked that their names be disguised or not used.

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