Introduction

As Pearl Buck said, "if you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday." So this week, we will search through a thumbnail sketch of American history to find clues about how our criminal court system developed. Native American cultures employed complex systems of justice, and you can learn more about those systems here.  For this class, we begin our exploration of American courts in the colonial era, then move quickly through the revolutionary, industrial, and world war eras. Finally, we will wrap up our whirlwind tour of the history of the courts in the mid-1900s. 

Objectives:

Upon completion of this lesson, students will be able to:

• Discuss the historical origins of the American legal system.
• Explain the foundations of the adversarial legal process and the common law heritage.
• Outline the historical development of the judicial branch of government
• Describe the historical contexts in which the courts have evolved