At a glance, the judicial system appears to have been set up to make sure that every one is punished fairly and equally no matter what your race is, your gender or your beliefs. But, once you begin to delve into the judicial systems background and trends you will begin to notice things that continuously happen to specific groups of people. You will begin to see that clearly some races are treated way different than other races which is not how the judicial system should be set up. Racism in the judicial system has been around since the beginning of the judicial system´s existence. It is a prime example of out many that showcase how the social justice of minorities are infringed upon. This type of injustice has lead to the many social justice
6 in 10 americans favor the death penalty for convicted murderers.There is no question that killing another person is the most heinous crime that one can commit. Yes, most prisoners convicted in death row are murders but there has been cases where someone innocent has been wrongly executed. For example, of this failure is the case of Roosevelt Green, who was executed in Georgia for the kidnapping and murder of a young woman. According to author David Bruck, "Green swore that his companion shot her . . . after Green had left and that he knew nothing about the murder. Green 's claim was supported by a statement his accomplice made to a witness". Roosevelt Green was executed despite witness testimony that he had nothing to do with the murder of
Courts are a major evaluative stage of the criminal justice system and we rely on these courts to determine our outcomes based on the crime that was committed. Today, there is more diversity of leadership in the court system but, race still plays a role in the outcome of the offender. This could range from petty crimes being committed like traffic infractions or facing the death penalty based on the race of the offender or victim. This paper will examine the three types of disparities that cause biased sentencing in the courts. The three types of disparities are race, social class, and gender and these all play a huge factor when making a decision based off an offender.
The Baldus study itself was a combination of two studies. Both studies reviewed over 2,000 cases in the state of Georgia during the 1970’s. The study’s main focus was to evaluate the influence of racial factors in the death sentencing phase. In most aspects of the study, the findings were not surprising except for one outcome. The study concluded that there was a racial disparity in the sentencing process. The biggest disparity that was found was when a death penalty case involved a white victim and a black defendant. After reviewing the death penalty cases, there was an indication that “twenty-two percent of cases received the death penalty when a black defendant and white victim were involved….compared to only three percent when there was a black victim and white defendant involved.” The study broke this data down further and looked at the percentages of when a prosecutor seeks the death penalty. The study found that prosecutors sought the death penalty in “seventy percent of cases that involved white victims and black defendants and only nineteen percent when the roles were reversed.” However, despite all of the racial disparities found, there was one conclusion that was quite surprising and contradicting. The figures from the cases reviewed suggested that there is a reverse racial disparity in the sentencing process. After
Thesis Statement : Capital Punishment is a very controversial topic around the globe. I believe that it does more harm than good and breeds violence in society.
Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New
I believe that the federal justice system is just and unbiased. The federal justice system has guidelines and rules to keep them from using power improperly and targeting groups of people based on their race. This is talked about in article “Is the Criminal Justice System Racist”. There are statistics given pertaining to the prison sentences given to African Americans, prosecution during a felony trial, and crime/prison rates.
In fact, a study done by the National Research Council, titled Deterrence and the Death Penalty, even went as far as stating that the claims supporting the death penalty are “fundamentally flawed” (2012). What is more important though, is to see if this can be observed in the real world today; and by no surprise, it can. In 2013, the FBI Uniform Crime Report showed that the Southern states had the highest murder rates, and the highest percentage of executions at 80%, whereas the Northeast has the lowest murder rates and only 1% of the year’s executions. So why does the South still have the highest murder rates even though they perform the most executions? One must assume that such extreme practices like the death penalty has to be unnecessary. If the cold-blooded killing of thousands does not lower premeditated murder, there is really no point (because let 's face it, the saying “eye for an eye” is childish and socially unacceptable). This same conclusion was agreed upon in a recent poll by almost 90% of the world’s criminological societies (Facts About the Death Penalty). However in all honesty, the argument against the death penalty doesn’t just stop at its redundancy, but also its
Racial and ethnicity discrimination in the justice system have been around since the beginning of this country against “Negroid” . Writing this research paper brings me back to the first book I ever read; “The Emmett Till Story;” which should be a reminder how awful our justice system can be. The problem we are having today in America is that Emmett Till’s story is still going on in 2017. The story goes like this per emmetttillmurder.com “While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman four days earlier.” Now this is we their system have fail, and continued to nose-dive the Negroid around in America. With all the evidence at hands, and witnesses like Moses’ Wright on September 23, the all-white jury deliberated for less than an hour before issuing a verdict of “not guilty,”
for a dull respondent than for a white prosecutor in a practically identical case. A study in California found that the people who killed whites were general 3 times more slanted to be sentenced to death than the people who killed blacks and more than 4 times more likely than the people who killed Latinos. Looks at exhibit that 96% of states where there
The death penalty is one of the most controversial topics in America today due to its turbulent nature. Capital punishment is highly debated and it encompasses a plethora of ethical, religious, political, and legal issues. Texas is one of the thirty-eight states in the nation that practices this form of punishment. (Naidoff, Caitlin) Although Texas is the state with the greatest number of death row sentences and executions, it has one of the highest crime rates in the entire nation. Therefore, the death penalty is ineffective because it does not diminish the incidence of crimes, take the life of innocent people, is racially unequal, costly, and alternative measure can be implemented
Do you believe there is a new Jim Crow in America 's justice system? Well, in the book The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, Alexander believes that America 's criminal justice system is racially biased. Furthermore, she believes that the legal system is trying to punish African Americans. There are many people that believe Alexander statements is very bold and not true. Adam Gopnik who wrote the article How We Misunderstand And Mass Incarceration believes that America criminal justice system is not racially biased, but the system has political motives. America’s criminal justice system is racially biased and influenced due to the fact that the punishment a person gets is not related to the crime that 's done, funds that help African
Throughout various court cases, convicts have reported to be victims of racial bias and discrimination due to their skin color. There has even been local statistical studies that prove this to be the case. In Harris County, for instance, of the defendants put on death row who “were sentenced to death for crimes that occurred when they were teenagers...73.3% were black and only 13.3% were white” (“Race and the Death Penalty”). Such action was seen in the case of Gary Graham, a fellow 17 year-old African-American, who was convicted for the robbery of a supermarket and the killing of Bobby Lambert in the year 1981. Throughout the case, Graham’s culpability was questioned multiple times due to the lack of provable and cogent evidence of his crime. For instance, although being a witness, Bernadine Skillerns’ testimony about glimpsing the murderer’s face through “a car windshield...30-40 feet away” was not ample enough to truly blame Graham of the crime ("Executed But Possibly Innocent"). Even more, two other witnesses that allegedly worked in the supermarket described Graham as not being the killer. Moreover, rather perfunctorily, the two witnesses were never “interviewed by Graham's court appointed attorney” ("Executed But Possibly Innocent"). Conceivably, decision-makers and court appointed attorney’s may fall back on conscious or oblivious preferences about who are the most noticeably awful sorts of convicts or who are the more sympathetic convicts, therefore, creating a potential bias system towards one's race. However, some may have a point that in some occasions racial bias can be hard to prove and is sometimes misleading. Nonetheless, due to the actions of court functionaries, the probability of wrongfully and purposely convicting someone to the death penalty due to skin color still
According to the 2010 Gallup Poll, 64% of the United State of America are supporting the death penalty, I as an American am part of that 36% that is against it. I do not believe that we as human being should determine whether another person should live or die. A second reason that I am against the death penalty is for the reason that the accused person could be innocent and normally the accused person only has one court presentation and is only judged by the judge not a jury of their peer, and is sent to death row where they pay for a crime that they haven’t done. My final reason that i do not believe that the death penalty should count as a punishment for the American people is because, a person that has done a massive massacre shouldn’t just be able to leave the world just like that without paying and suffering for what they have done, Or should the death punishment continue as it is for it has a great benefit to us as citizens of the United States. Will you stand with us or against us?
Studies conducted by the people behind the death penalty information center, have shown that African Americans were over 80 percent of the people condemned by the death penalty in Pennsylvania. In the united states 82% of the studies the race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty. Those who murdered whites were found more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks (deathpenaltyinfo).