History of the Justice System Essay

History of the Justice System
Michael Buser
02/15/2013

Historical Perspective of the Justice System When we think of the word justice and look at our judicial system we must consider how far we came since the beginning of its time. Our legal system can be seen as far back as biblical times. Although we have since evolved and made several changes in the way we judge and punish people for their criminal actions we can certainly see a strong presence of justice since the beginning of time. In the following I will discuss the way we have evolved and what changes were made to the justice system in modern America. When we look at biblical times we can see that crime itself dates back at least seven thousand years ago starting with the book of genesis. In Exodus 21: 24, the often misquoted "Eye for an eye" (Law and Liberty Foundation) verse, when we read this in context it is a statement of the modern rule of proportionality standard used in our courts today and in some ways continues to be used in certain crimes when considering sentencing for a crime that was committed. In Deuteronomy 17:6, the current day principles of having two or more witnesses are found. This is a requirement that states there should be two forms of direct testimony that corroborate one another (Law and Liberty Foundation). This is the standard of admissible evidence in nearly all capital cases. The following verses have set a standard for capital punishment, Deuteronomy 8-13, acknowledge that there will be hard questions of law which should be decided by the appellate level in this historical days this refers to the clergy and in modern days we look to our criminal courts and supreme courts to make decisions wisely and carefully to be fair to every involved. As you can see in the above paragraph a lot of the same principals and ideas in the biblical era have been partially adopted over and over again and continues to be used in the 21’st century as a general guide in our judicial system and acts as a guide for legal proceedings. Since the beginning of time we have seen many eras and many changes along the way. But if you observe closely a lot of the original principals have be carried over from the old covenant to the new covenant all the way through Greco-Roman Law, English Common Law and Colonial America Law to the present day of the criminal justice system. Today in the 21st century we see a lot of changes being created in our justice system and in most cases these changes our positive and serve as a tool to combat crime and terrorism in our nation. If we look closely at our nation we can see a huge incline of crime over the past few decades due to several factors like the economy, education and substance abuse (NAS). One of the main changes that have been taking affect

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