The Structure of the US Court System and Determination of Truth Essay

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By and large, the current US court system is adversarial and involves two parties arguing on opposing ends. Apparently, the process is affected by differences in terms of resources and access to vital information (Findley, 2012). The advocates argue their positions before an impartial judge and the outcome depends on how the arguments are presented. An innocent person may thus lose in a case if his or her advocate fails to present a convincing argument. Generally, those who have easy access to both resources and information may have an unfair advantage over those without.

Clearly, the structure of the US court system does not create room for truth to be determined. The weaknesses in the system make it possible for competing teams to use whatever means necessary to compromise truth (Findley, 2012). The system may be characterized by the use of tricks, hiding of facts that would otherwise lead to the determination of truth, and misrepresentation of facts among others. Ostensibly, many people are dissatisfied with the existing US court system and are now seeking new ways for determining the truth.

There have been suggestions to study the inquisitorial system and adopt some of its features that could help to improve the determination of truth under the US adversarial system. It is imperative to get all key players including prosecutors, courts, and lawmakers involved in searching for a system that will work well in the United States and guarantee fairness for all regardless of class or race (Bakken, 2011).

Barriers to Truth in the US Court System

Although the United States takes pride in the adversarial system, its design is such that establishing the truth is quite challenging. To a large extent, the system requires adversaries to work hard in providing facts that would favor them over their opponents. Seemingly, the difficulty in determining the truth is linked to the fact that adversaries are never equal. While equality among the adversaries may create an environment where truth could be established, inequality leads to the opposite. Considering that instances of inequality are more than those of equality, determining the truth is not an easy task.

Lack of funding has also been cited as a major problem that hinders truth from being revealed. Those with enough funding are able to access more resources and important information to be used during court sessions while individuals without such an advantage fail to get the information necessary for them to effectively argue their positions.

Conclusion

Certainly, the US court system is one that does not promote the disclosure of vital information regarding any trial. It allows opposing teams to disclose only part of what they know about a case while the rest remain a secret. Arguably, it is impossible to determine truth through the system even after a trial is over.

It is thus advisable to redesign the US court system in order to make the determination of truth easy. As explained in this paper, integrating some features of the inquisitorial system into the commonly used adversarial system may improve its ability as far as establishing truth is concerned.

Failure to have a fair court system will leave many innocent people at the mercy of wealthy individuals who may use what they have to manipulate the system to their advantage. In addition, loopholes in the current court system will only make it easy for offenders to go unpunished.

References

Bakken, T. (2011). Models of Justice to Protect Innocent Persons. New York Law School Law Review, 56, 837.

Findley, K. (2011). Adversarial Inquisitions: Rethinking the Search for the Truth.New York Law Review, Forthcoming, 56, 911 – 941.

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