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The U.S. Legal System

I. Introduction To U.S. Legal System

Law emerges from a process in which the government procedures rules enforceable through sanctions.

Law is a part of a system of social controls that recognizes and enforces rights and duties.

Note: Law is not the exclusive method of social control.

Religion, morality, custom, societal norms, and family benefits.

The law is dynamic because it must respond to changes in society.

A right is a legal claim that does not interfere with a protected interest.

A duty is a legal obligation not to interfere with the protected interest.

Personal rights and property rights.

Personal rights are rights one possesses under being a person but may also arise from a contract.

Property rights are rights in a thing that can be disposed of or transferred.

Note: Property rights are usually associated with real property and personal property.

 

Law embodies ethical precepts but is not coextensive with them.

An approach to any ethical decision that asks what the consequences would be if all people in the same circumstances behaved similarly.

It believes that God or nature, not humanity, is the source of all law.

It defines law as those rules that have been developed in society and tested over time.

This school believes that the law is the set of rules established and enforced by those who exercise power.

Law should be dynamically directed toward meeting the changing needs of society.

It weighed in the cost and benefits of a proposed rule to determine its desirability.

It is to resolve disputes while maintaining stability and predictability in society and permitting orderly change.

It ensures that changes in the political system are brought about by political action, not by revolution or rebellion.

It is allocated between the federal government and the state governments.

Executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

It prevents excessive accumulation of power in any one branch, and it enables each branch to exercise its constitutional responsibilities without undue influence by the other branches.

The common law relies heavily on the judiciary as a source of law and on the adversarial method for adjudication of disputes.

Substantive vs. procedural, criminal vs. civil, public vs. private, and law vs. equity.

Substantive law is a body of constitutional directives, statutes, administrative rules, and common law principles that define rights and duties.

Procedural law governs how the judicial or administrative process is accessed and operates.

Substantive law creates right and obligations, and procedural law describes how a party enforce rights and settles obligations.

Criminal law protects society’s interests by defining offenses against the public and providing for their punishment by a government body.

Civil law provides an injured party the opportunity to bring suit seeking private remedies to compensate for his or her injury.

Criminal violations are deemed to be wrongs against society as a whole, whereas civil violations are noncriminal injuries to specific private parties.

Public law concerns the organization of government and its relation to the people.

Major areas of public law are constitutional law, criminal law, and administrative law.

Private law defines the legal relationships among private individuals.

Private law includes areas of contract law, property law, tort law, and the law of business organizations.

It was created with the power to create remedies when laws were not sufficient.

It arose because English common law courts could not furnish sufficiently flexible remedies for the legal needs of the population.

Jury trials were not allowed and application of such equitable maxim as the clean hands doctrine.

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