Research Paper on:
Duties of a Paralegal Involving Sentencing Issues

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
defendant in a criminal court case. Most take the process for granted, much like sitting in the seat of a comfortable chair. How do juries and judges arrive at their  conclusions, when are defendants allowed a plea, what are pre-sentence reports and why are they necessary, and are their alternatives to incarceration that judges and juries are now exploring? Once  the sentencing phase has commenced and the jury has rendered their verdict, per the judges ruling, sentencing calculations follow. What these consist of, in a nutshell, are the calculations of  time served by the individual. There are scads of software that do these calculations, taking into account each states primary codes and by laws in regard to the offense and  the mandates of each county in which the offense occurred. In other words, in some states, there is a mandatory life sentence for drug trafficking, while those convicted of more  violent crimes are actually eligible for parole. These software programs take into account each states mandates. The downside, of course, is that one would think that these software packages would  have to be renewed often since the laws in regard to these offenses are constantly being amended or changed completely, including length of term served, and mandatory requirements. These sentencing  calculations, as one can see, do not seem to be standardized from one state to the next. There have been proposals to standardize this and other sentencing issues so as  to increases in criminal activity in certain areas of the country where sentencing laws and prosecution rates are lower for certain crimes. For example, prior to October 1, 1983, courts  in Florida sentenced in accordance with the provisions of law that granted a very wide latitude in the sentencing decision(US VS Pierre, 2002). Sanctions ranged from a fine, up to