Criminal Possession Of Weapon: A Court Observation Report

Write a report on the criminal possession of weapon.

This assignment is based on the court observation that should be discussed and analyzed thoroughly. In this observation report, the criminal possession of weapon has been discussed and a trial proceeding that is experienced through the court work has been discussed. It is a detailed version of work proceeding. A scheduled watch report has also been discussed.

1. Name of the student :
2. Date and time of attendance :
3. Name of the Court : Monroe County Court
4. Address of the court : 610, Monroe Street, Stroudsburg, PA 18360.
5. Court level : Felony
6. Name of the case : people v Bob Davidson (Defendant)
7. Presiding judge : Maxwell Judge
8. District Attorney :
9. Defense Attorney :
10. Charges imposed : Criminal possession of weapon
11. Proceeding observed : May, 2017

The case that I have observed is based on criminal possession of weapon (Goel, Rao  & Shroff, 2016). This crime is considered as mala prohibita under the statute of America (Anderson, 2014). A person will charged under the offence of criminal possession of weapon if he or she takes the possession of the weapon unlawfully. In American law, some weapon has been mentioned that are harmful to the society and it is banned from the personal use of these weapon. The nature of this crime is public order crime. Possessions of weapon that are mainly use for the military purpose like bomb or machine gun are within the provision of the crime. The crime is divided into four degrees or parts. In this case, all four types of degrees has been charged (Clinard, Quinney, & Wildeman, 2014).  

In this case, the examination and cross-examination of the witnesses are being observed and the case is in trial level (Sartor, Kranzler & Gelernter, 2014). The defendant of this case has been charged with all the four degrees. I have observed the testimony of the last witness, who was the investigator of the case Mr. Peter Wills. The investigator has testified the matters that are recorded by him during the interview of the defendant and the statement of the defendant during that time. The motion of the defense attorney for the order of dismissal and the discussion between the judge and the attorneys of both sides are also been observed.

  I have learnt the court procedure regarding the trial of criminal possession of weapon and the testimony of the witnesses and the motion by the attorneys as well (Minear, 2015). The environment of the courtroom was very attentive. The case was felony in nature and the discussion that are placed by both the attorneys and witnesses are very informative.

In the classroom, we have learnt about the criminology (Freilich et al., 2015). The base of that subject, the common law and the statutes are precisely discussed. There are many types of criminal offences that are divided in two forms namely misdemeanor and felony. Misdemeanor is the less serious crime and the felony is the more serious crime. The acts that are fall within the felonious character are known as mala prohibita. It has been provided by our lecturer that two things are needed in case of committing a crime, that are Actus reus and mens rea (Rumbold, Morrison & Riha, 2016). In USA, there are many federal statutes enacted to state the weapon related crimes. The National Firearms Act 1934, the Federal Firearms Act 1938, Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Street Act 1968, Gun Control Act 1968, Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act 2005 are some of this federal laws that are providing rules and obligations relating to the gun and weapon (Jacobs, 2015). In the classroom, the lecturers have given an overview regarding the criminal law or the applied methods of criminology. However, in the courtroom there were numerous scopes to know about the practical procedure of criminal law. The testimony of the witnesses, the submission process of the prosecutor, the instruction procedure of jury, the appearance of the presiding judge and the examination proceedings were very interesting and knowledgeable (Cole, Smith & DeJong, 2015).

Methods

The presiding officer of the courtroom was very eager to control the proceeding and forward the proceeding efficiently. His voice was very clear and calm. He had an abstract knowledge on criminal jurisprudence and skilled with various provision of crimes and analyzing power. The prosecutor of the case showed her divergence with the defense attorney and was quite confident. She was well prepared and did not pause for a long time during the examination. Her way of asking question was direct and concise in nature. She had asked question from the various provisions of the related case law and emphasize the sections thoroughly. The role of the defense attorney in that case was very unimpressive and he had failed to perform his duties properly. He had proved himself as non-professional and taken too much time by shuffling papers during cross-examination. The role of the defense lawyer in a criminal case is very important as the future of the accused is totally depending on him. He should have an intense knowledge about the matter he is submitting and should be firm at the time of representation. However, the disorganized manner of the defense attorney was very unimpressive.

In this case, it was observed that the defendant is guilty of criminal possession of weapon in the second degree. The defendant possessed a loaded firearm at his shop and was unable to show any permit regarding the same. There are certain conditions provided by the penal Law where it has been stated that if a person exceeds the level prescribe by the law, he can be held guilty even for the possession of knife or metal knuckles. The defendant of this case was arrested under the provision for the first degree also as he had the possession over eleven firearms and he possessed the same knowingly. Through this case, I had come to know about the term Miranda right that the investigator of the case gave to the accused. Miranda right is a silence warning by the USA police to the accused in case of custodial interrogation. It is a preventive measure regarding the criminal procedure. There has been a discussion over the Rosario material regarding the case (Delgado et al., 2016). It is a form of statement by the witness that is signed by him and the police officer prepares the paperwork of the material.

Every criminal case is based on some legal doctrines. This case is not an exception to this rule. It has been previously mentioned that there are several federal Acts that prohibit the illegal use of weapon and gun. Thus, it is clear that the case is stand on the principle of possession (Weaver et al., 2016). The U.S Supreme Court has observed that the meaning of possession is very much ambiguous in nature. The meaning of possession is very wide. In the present case, there are two principle of possession present namely, possession in fact and possession in law. In United States v. Nenadich 1988, it was observed that the actual possession means direct physical custody of an object. The theory of constructive possession is based on the principle that there may be some situation arose where the person has no direct custody over the object. In United States v. Derose 1996, it was held that if a person knowingly possessed a harmful object, he should be held guilty for that. The case has been based on the provision of criminal possession also (Webster et al., 2013). Many statutes prohibit the subject matter of the case and the offence is a felonious offence. If a person held liable for such offence, he should be punished for that. The conception of actual possession is similar of the criminal possession.

In this particular case, the jury members were pleased to pass order against the defendant and sentencing him after hearing the submission of the prosecutor and defense counsel and the testimony by the witnesses. It is a common provision of law that it is illegal to hold some weapons that are dangerous in nature. Various provisions of the law have suggested that it is immaterial to possess certain weapons that are used in military processes and those are against the nature of civil society. However, there are some loopholes present into the decision of the court. The defendant has not got the option of plea bargain. It is clear from the Rosario material that the defendant had not confessed anything or did not plead guilty. There were certain dilemmas in case of the defense lawyer too. The investigator had failed to prove that the weapons that were rescued from the possession of the defendant.

Conclusion:

Therefore, from the above named case report, it has been concluded that the trial motion of the case was quite informative to me and the practical knowledge gained by me is a precious one. The experience regarding the art of examination of witnesses, submission by the attorneys, and critical analysis by the presiding officer helps to gain the practical skill on the court procedure as well as helps to relate the classroom study with the practical knowledge.   

Reference:

Anderson, J. F. (2014). Criminological Theories. Jones & Bartlett Publishers, pp 58.

Clinard, M. R., Quinney, R., & Wildeman, J. (2014). Criminal behavior systems: A typology. Routledge.

Cole, G. F., Smith, C. E., & DeJong, C. (2015). The American system of criminal justice. Nelson Education.

Delgado, R., González, J. L., Sotoca, A., & Tibau, X. A. (2016, August). A Bayesian Network Profiler for Wildfire Arsonists. In International Workshop on Machine Learning, Optimization and Big Data (pp. 379-390). Springer, Cham.

Freilich, J. D., Adamczyk, A., Chermak, S. M., Boyd, K. A., & Parkin, W. S. (2015). Investigating the applicability of macro-level criminology theory to terrorism: A county-level analysis. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 31(3), 383-411.

Goel, S., Rao, J. M., & Shroff, R. (2016). Personalized Risk Assessments in the Criminal Justice System. The American Economic Review, 106(5), 119-123.

Jacobs, J. B. (2015). Why Ban Assault Weapons. Cardozo L. Rev., 37, 681.

Minear, R. H. (2015). Victors' Justice: Tokyo War Crimes Trial. Princeton University Press, pp 87.

Rumbold, J., Morrison, I., & Riha, R. (2016). Criminal law and parasomnias: Some legal clarifications. Journal of clinical sleep medicine: JCSM: official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 12(8), 1197.

Sartor, C. E., Kranzler, H. R., & Gelernter, J. (2014). Rate of progression from first use to dependence on cocaine or opioids: a cross-substance examination of associated demographic, psychiatric, and childhood risk factors. Addictive behaviors, 39(2), 473-479.

Weaver, R., Burkoff, J., Hancock, C., Hoeffel, J., Singer, S., & Friedland, S. (2016). Principles of criminal procedure.

Webster, D. W., Whitehill, J. M., Vernick, J. S., & Curriero, F. C. (2013). Effects of Baltimore’s Safe Streets Program on gun violence: A replication of Chicago’s CeaseFire Program. Journal of Urban Health, 90(1), 27-40.