The Rights of the Accused before Trial - An Emphasis On The Rights Of The Accused, The Right Against Self-incrimination, The Right To Counsel

The Rights of the Accused before Trial - An Emphasis On The Rights Of The Accused

Among the phrases from American legal language that have entered the common usage are "burden of proof" and "presumption of innocence." In legal actions against someone accused of a crime, the burden of proof is on the state to prove its case, not on the accused to prove his innocence--and certainly not for the accused to prove his guilt. Closely tied with this is the presumption of innocence: the…

The Rights of the Accused before Trial - The Right Against Self-incrimination

The Sixth Amendment contains a key provision to which the government must abide at the beginning of the criminal justice process, arrest: the right to be informed of the accusation. Under the authoritarian or totalitarian systems referred to above, persons can simply be arrested without even knowing the crime they have supposedly committed. By contrast, the U.S. system requires, under Rule 7 of th…

The Rights of the Accused before Trial - The Right To Counsel

Of course the accused--assuming he pleads "not guilty" in a hearing--will eventually have to speak in his defense, either personally or, as is more likely, through legal counsel. The right to representation by an attorney is guaranteed in the Sixth Amendment, but the Court did not begin to explore the implications of this guarantee until 1932, with Powell v. Alabama. In this, the celebrated case o…

The Rights of the Accused before Trial - The (implied) Right To Bail

The Eighth Amendment is much shorter than the Fifth and Sixth, and its importance with regard to the pretrial phase lies in its first six words: "Excessive bail shall not be required." This is the only mention of bail in the Constitution, but it has long been understood to imply that the accused has a right to bail--not a right to pretrial release, but a right to have bail set. Under the system of…

The Rights of the Accused before Trial - Further Readings