The United States is a nation governed by the rule of law. The constitution provides for a due process to be followed during the arrest and conviction of suspects. A suspect is innocent unless proven guilty by a competent court of law. There are other victim rights such as the right to fair representation and the right to confrontation of witnesses who utter statements against a defendant. The purpose of this essay is to analyze two court cases: Reginald Meeks, Petitioner (Appellant) v. David Mckune, et al., (Respondent) and United States of America, Plaintiff – Appellee, versus Conrad Dominic Poole, Defendant – Appellant. Due process was followed in all these cases and the courts were right in the decisions that they held.
In the case of Reginald Meeks, Petitioner (Appellant) v. David Mckune, et al., (Respondent), the court was right in denying Mr. Meek’s habeas petition. Meeks had argued that his Six Amendment Confrontation Clause rights were infringed upon at trial because the court admitted the victim’s statement into evidence. Mr. Meek’s argument was that the witness statement “Meeks shot me” was hearsay because the victim was not in court to corroborate the statement. The Crawford v. Washington case can be used to explain that the statement was still admissible in court. The court was right in ruling that Meeks was not entitled to confrontation of witnesses against him because he had shot and killed the witness.
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"Court Case Analysis".
Mr. Meeks denial of continuance was not a violation of the due process. The basis for this appeal was that Ms. Harris the owner of the club that Mr. Meeks purportedly visited had changed her evidence. However, Meeks had the chance of cross-examine the witness and other witnesses who supported her statement.
There is a standard for judging the performance of an attorney which is based on the principle of reasonable effective assistance considering the circumstances of the case. When Mr. Meeks appeals on the grounds of ineffectiveness of the counsel, the defendant must prove that the representation of the counsel did not meet the standards of reasonableness. Mr. Meeks did not prove the procedural and technical errors made by the counsel and how the errors would have caused a difference in the case. The court was therefore right to deny Mr. Meeks appeal.
In the case of United States of America, Plaintiff – Appellee, versus Conrad Dominic Poole, Defendant – Appellant, the court was right in affirming the judgment of the district court that sentenced Poole to 72 months of imprisonment. Poole pleaded guilty to possession of firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § § 922 (g) (1). Poole appealed the conviction and asserted that the district court erred in admitting victim impact statement as part of the witness statements. The court was right because officer Kaplan who made the victim impact statements had all the rights of a victim to make statements on the effects of Poole’s actions on her. Poole had a just of rejecting Kaplan’s statements during cross-examination but he did not reject the statements.
There are some similarities and differences between these cases. The first similarity is that they both involved gun violence. The other similarity is that one of the basis of the appeals is that due process was not followed during trial or conviction of the cases. One difference between the two cases is that the Meeks case resulted in the murder of the victim and so he could not act as a witness in the case. The other difference is the number of years the defendants were imprisoned: Meeks was imprisoned for 25 years while Conrad was imprisoned for 72 months.
In conclusion, due process is a very important issue in American criminal justice system. It is important that due process be followed during arrest and conviction of suspects. The analysis above has shown that due process was followed in both Meeks and Conrad’s cases. The judges were therefore right in taking the decisions.
