JUDICIAL DISCRETION AS A PHENOMENON OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN THE USA

The article is devoted to the general-purpose analysis of the concept of «judicial discretion» in the criminal process of the United States of America and its necessity in the law enforcement process. The concept of «judicial power», its place in the system of power separation and specific aspects of functioning has been analyzed. Objective reasons for existence of the judicial discretion have been defined. This study arises from the need of a comprehensive theoretical elaboration of judicial discretion issue in the USA and the development of recommendations on this basis, which may be important for further meaning, improvement of law enforcement. To achieve the set goal, the research covered the following main task: to analyze the current situation of the study of the judicial discretion doctrine and the contribution of individual researchers to the study of this issue. The article analyzed opinions that the source of law shall, in its ideal sense, traditionally mean different legal doctrines, legal conscience, ideological and other factors that influenced on the formation of the provision of law. Domestic legal literature considers the source of law in its ideal sense in respect of the regulations. Anglo-Saxon legal system devotes a significant role to the case law in the system of sources of law, which is established on the basis of judicial discretion. Therefore, judicial discretion can be ideally treated as a law. The special aspects of the application of legal provision, including the criminal one, have been defined: this is a complex process consisting of a number of stages, from the analysis of facts that, in aggregate, establish a cause to apply a provision of law, to decision-making and its fixing in the administrative enactment. Therefore, an issue of limits of the judicial discretion in applying criminal law regulations in full also refers to the activities of other law enforcement agencies within their competence, i. e. in respect of establishing the grounds of criminal responsibility and qualification of alleged criminal act.