The Role of Magistrates Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

The Role of Magistrates - Essay ExampleThus, magistrates assignments and the organization of their workloads can vary, sometimes dramatically, non only from partition to district and courthouse to courthouse, but also among magistrates with offices along the same hallway in a single courthouse. (Carroll, 2003)Although they determine task assignments from district judge, magistrates, as judicial officers with their own legal and support staffs, retain at least(prenominal) some degree of autonomy in designing the organization of their workload. In fact, because they generally are not as involved with the time-consuming business of presiding over trials, events which require definitive scheduling in fix to take over parties, attorneys, witnesses, jurors, and opposite actors simultaneously present in one room, the master judges frequently have significant autonomy in deciding when to address crabbed delegate tasks during their workdays.The magistrates generally are not responsib le for prisoner cases. Habeas corpus and civil rights cases by prisoners are reviewed by two staff attorneys assigned to the district court. An experienced senior magistrate supervises these staff attorneys. Although this magistrate was laden with additional responsibilities, unlike in some other districts, he was not rewarded with the title chief magistrate. After the initial screening by the staff attorneys, prisoner cases meeting procedural and legal requirements may be assigned by judges to their paired magistrates. A duty magistrate system developed for handling preliminary brutal matters. In the large court, magistrates are on duty for separate, rotating, one-week periods in which they have exclusive responsibility for processing the criminal cases. Thus, the magistrates normally handle criminal matters only once every five weeks. In the large court, criminal pre-trial matters, such as arraignments, alliance reviews, de cristaltion hearings, initial appearances, search warra nts, and arrest warrants, arise virtually every day. In addition, some of the judges have magistrates handle criminal pre-trial conferences to coordinate and settle evidentiary and other matters prior to trial. Magistrates in operation The following incident observed at the courthouse provides a picture of the magistrates at work as subordinate yet authoritative judicial officers. In the large courthouse, there is a daily Duty previse scheduled at one oclock each afternoon to handle preliminary criminal matters. On this particular day, the districts magistrates held their regular monthly luncheon meeting, which did not conclude until 115. Afterwards, the duty magistrate talked with the author almost the magistrates roles for ten more minutes prior to entering the courtroom. Magistrates, like judges, recognize that lawyers and witnesses are frequently late in getting to court. Therefore, court proceedings generally do not begin and the magistrate or judge allow not enter the cour troom until all other relevant actors are present. The magistrates lack of concern about beginning precisely on time did not indicate