Lesson 1: The Courtroom and the Jury
Legal Studies 3080
Section 3 - The Trial
Lesson 1 - The Courtroom and the Jury
The Adversary System
Have you ever heard courtroom lawyers (or as they are more correctly called,
litigation
lawyers
) referred to as
hired guns?
It is not a very flattering description, but in a way it fits.
People going to a criminal trial, remember, are
presumed innocent until they are proven guilty; and they have the right
to hire lawyers - legal professionals - whose job it is to do everything
legally within their power to win their client's cases (or, failing
that, to minimize the penalties they will pay). This can be difficult
for lawyers who find themselves defending people they believe to be
guilty, but lawyers who would not do their very best for their clients
would be, in effect denying those clients a fair and open trial - and
the fundamental right of being considered
innocent until proven guilty
in a court of law.
This way of going about a trial is called the
adversary system
because it involves two opposing forces - adversaries -
fighting it out before an impartial third party. In criminal cases, of
course, one side is the Crown, in the person of the
Crown prosecutor
(or
Crown counsel
) representing the citizens of Canada; the other side is the
defendant
(or the
accused) and his or her lawyer, called the
defense counsel. As you already know, the onus is on the Crown to
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused not only committed the
actus reus
of the crime for which he or she is accused but also had the necessary
mens rea.