Ethical Dilemmas In Court Cases

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A magistrate is defined as a minor judicial officer, as a justice of the peace or the judge of a police court, having jurisdiction to try minor criminal cases and to conduct preliminary examinations of persons charged with serious crimes according to dictionary.com. (dictionary.reference.com/browse/magistrate) Just as in any criminal justice profession, a city court magistrate is expected to follow a certain standard of ethical behavior, although these code of ethics might differ slightly from city to city, each code is based off the standards set by the American Bar Association under the Model Code of Judicial Conduct. In the following paragraphs a litany of activities of a powerful city magistrate during duty will be questioned as to whether …show more content…
Just merely asking to borrow money from any court employee is an egregiously unethical activity. In a courtroom setting the judge is the boss so it puts the employees in a very tricky situation because they could very well feel intimidated to lend the magistrate money for the sheer unease that their job would be at risk if they did not comply. One of the most important things about judges is there needs to be not even the slightest appearance of impropriety and I think that borrowing money from anyone related to any criminal justice profession would do just that, even if the magistrate did not use any kind of intimidation it is still a highly unethical situation that could land a judge in front of an ethics committee being sanctioned but there is nothing illegal with borrowing money from an …show more content…
Due process is a fundamental, constitutional guarantee that all legal proceedings will be fair and that one will be given notice of the proceedings and an opportunity to be heard before the government acts to take away one's life, liberty, or property. (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Due+Process+of+Law) This is clearly judicial misconduct and compromises the judicial system as a whole and would most likely have the magistrate’s rulings under appeal but the freedom of this judge in question. In one instance the magistrate banned one of the defense attorneys in a case from speaking during a trial could also be seen to go beyond unethical deeds but to the level of judicial misconduct, a defendant could have reason for appeal which disrupts the system because of the unprofessional manner in which this magistrate runs his courtroom. People have lost faith in the justice system when judges make rulings that are ridiculous and