A Brief Description of American Law

Criminal law, also known as penal law, is described as criminal acts that injure and individual as well as a society and it's people, property and social order. The law stems from English traditions of breaking the "kings peace". Though the victims of many criminal law violations are individuals, the act itself goes against the peaceful established society and thus becomes a case between a government body such as a city or state against the charged criminal. Criminal law is composed of statutory law-the written law, and case law. When a person is convicted of breaking a criminal law, they are punished with imprisonment as a way of holding them accountable for acts deemed offensive to society. Considering our country was founded by the English, it stands to reason that the current aspects of criminal law were established by similar components of the English penal law which were laws that sought to uphold the institution of the Church of England.

Civil law is a law that oversees violations between parties. One who files a civil suit after a violation of contracts, unfair practices, property transfer and other wrongful act, damage or injury is a formal method of bringing charges from one party to another through the court system. Though they are not considered to be crimes, civil suits may be brought up against a convicted criminal where the victims families are seeking monetary compensation and peace of mind. Civil law came to be through Roman laws such as Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law) and was further developed through Europe by medieval scholars during the middle ages.

Administrative law are closely tied to the social norms and mores assigned by a society to its people such as health codes, vehicle registration, civil rights, education, immigration, and environmental protection and is considered to be the public law. The origin of administrative law was enacted by the United States federal government in 1946 as part of the Administrative Procedure act allowing established regulations.

Case law, or the law of precedent is a method used to ensure that all agencies of the governing bodies of a state utilizes previously established court decisions in its execution of future criminal, civil, and administrative court cases. These judicially made and legally decided laws, are used to establish guidelines incorporated by the courts to ensure cases of a similar nature reach similar conclusions. Case law, also considered to be part of common law, is based loosely on English historical methods of law enforcement. Before written law was common practice, most communities were governed by unwritten local customs, which were enforced in an illogical manner.

Procedural law is a statutory law that regulates the processing of an offender by officers of the criminal justice system. Procedural law enforces due process, rules of evidence, and arrest, as well as other judicial operations and ensures fairness. Procedural law seems to stem from the Roman law of civil procedure which was a process courts followed