Comparison of Pretrial and Trial in Great Britain and the United States
This paper will discuss certain aspects of the criminal trial in Great Britain and compare them to the criminal trial in the United States. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part will focus upon pretrial procedures and defendants' rights. The primary focus will be upon the ability of the police to arrest a suspect, the right to legal representation, the right against self-incrimination, and the admissibility of evidence. The second part of the paper will focus upon the various attributes of the jury system in the criminal trial. The main emphasis of this discussion will be jury selection, especially the ability of both sides to uncover jurors biases and to challenge prospective jurors.
The basic structure of pretrial procedure in England is similar to that in the United States. This fact should not be surprising, given that the U.S. legal system was basically imported from England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Many of the protections which Americans have come to expect originated in England in the years preceding the great emigration to North America. However, differences between the two systems arose in the years following the U.S. independence movement. Many of the differences were the result of differing responses to the professionalization of the criminal justice system in the Western World in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. During the Nineteenth Century, professional police forces were formed in the large urban centers of both countries; both these and the smaller constabulary and sheriff offices were forced to adapt to the increasing emphasis on criminal defendant rights in the appellate courts of both countries. These rights were delineated by the appellate courts in both countries, as well as by the Parliament in Britain.
The process in Britain begins with an arrest of a suspect. This arrest can be...