Legal Ease: A Guide to Criminal Law, Evidence, and Procedure

Legal Ease is a versatile book that addresses how laws evolve and change as if they were living, breathing entities that are a mirror reflecting societal change. This new third edition offers the reader an expansive and practical guide to the many aspects of law. Presented in three sections, the book explains the practice of law through all phases of the criminal justice system. Part One, Criminal Law Explained, offers a history of law, defines criminal conduct, and explains the tools attorneys use in their practice. Section Two, Criminal Procedure and Evidence, details the steps required to institute constitutional search, seizure, and arrest. It also provides a comprehensive description of the duties and responsibilities of prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement, and court personnel. Section Three, A Walk Through the Criminal Justice System, takes the reader step-by-step through the process of a trial, from jury selection to verdict and sentencing, and finally to the appeal process. Defendants' rights are discussed as they navigate through the criminal justice system. The ideas and principles behind the country's constitutional amendments are explained, with many case examples offered to illustrate. Additional topics new to this edition address privacy rights, picketing at funerals, free speech/cruelty to animals, youthful offenders and sentencing, strip search of students, sexting, deportation and minor drug cases, DNA testing, warrantless search, medicare scams, and workforce retaliation, among others. The inclusion of 'Key Words' and 'Questions for Review and Discussion' sections at the end of each chapter will prove invaluable to instructors and students. This comprehensive volume continues to give groups who are new to the scene, as well as those who aren't, an easy-to-read book of reference for all those nuances the law continues to press onto the legal system.