Criminal Law Vs. Court-Made Law

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In this paper, I will explain the difference between case law and statutes. Lastly, I will explain how a public administrator may implement case law and statutes differently.
Case law or common law also known as court-made law is laws that permit judges to render decisions based on the ruling of previous cases with similar situations. (Currier and Eimermann) In other words, judges read existing laws and based on whatever they read, make a written decision. Their written decision will then become a legal guide and later used in future cases or new law. Statutory law or written law, also known as statutes is the law written by the legislative branch of government. (Currier & Eimermann) Statues can be enacted by the state and federal governments …show more content…

Civil law is when harm is one individual does harm to the other. Criminal law is when an individual harms society. In civil and criminal law, the plaintiff or prosecutor has the right of burden to prove their case. On the other hand, the person being sued or the defendant must show why they are not responsible. In civil law, a person will either be liable or not liable while a person in a criminal case would be found guilty or not guilty. In civil cases they punishment may be to pay damages while in criminal cases they are punished to death, prison, or fines. Statutory laws are designed to control future actions and behaviors of individuals. When no cases have no statues, common laws are used. In civil law, have to prove it lawsuit on the preponderance of the evidence while in a criminal matter they have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Both also have to try to establish a prima facie case. An example of a case law or common law case is a breach of contract case. I agree to sell this lady my car my car for $3,500.00 and she agrees to give me $500.00 down today and pay $500.00 on the 1st of each month starting on 3-05-2014 until paid. We both sign a contract and it states that if she fails to do right then she is breaking the agreement and I have a right to take her to court. Another example is I am driving on a street owned by the city and a limb falls onto my car totaling it. They should be responsible for the damages because the tree is on their property and they should have gone around and inspected trees to see which ones are starting to rot. An example of statue law is murder. Let’s just say I go out and kill someone just because I wanted to. There is no way that a a civil law setting would be an appropriate punishment for