United States Vs Smiley Case Analysis

After looking over the two cases United States v. Smiley and United States v. Loughner there is a big similarity in which took a big role in these cases. What brings them together is jurisdiction and its concept. “Jurisdiction refers to the authority of the court to hear certain” (Criminal Justice pg 287). This concept is used in both cases and the uniqueness of jurisdiction leads them to be the same. Jurisdiction is a beauty in the criminal justice system but it is also hard to figure out without proper knowledge. Kind of mind blowing that a murder case and a case about finding goods off the borders of mexico are put in the same category when dealing with jurisdiction. Geographical jurisdiction is mainly used within both of these cases. It has to do with, geographical jurisdiction, political boundaries of cities, counties, and states. Going deeper into geographical jurisdiction there is a branch from it, it is called venue, the particular location or area in which a court may hear a case. The way the venues were decided in both cases is a …show more content…
Smiley is a very unique case that involves a complaint being made against Smiley and his company. They were indicted under the 9th Section of the Crimes Act of 1825, which basically states, obtaining any piece of goods from a U.S. ship, vessel, boat, etc would result in guilty of a felony, imprisonment, and a fine. No matter who shore the goods may end up on that is U.S. jurisdiction and U.S. property. In this case, Smiley and his crew found goods 150 feet from Mexico’s shore. With the Crimes Act of 1825 legally that is U.S. property, end of discussion. But the U.S. gave up all rights to their property once they chose to close all voyages to go out and retain the rest of the goods. At least that was the thought of Smiley’s company and Mexico. They had given up on all efforts, they didn’t claim it anymore, it became abandoned property. So the U.S. does not have jurisdiction over abandoned property, no one

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