Guilty or not guilty, all citizens deserve a thorough trial to defend their rights. Formulating coherent stories from events and circumstances almost cost a young boy his life. In Twelve Angry Men, 1957, a single juror did his duty to save the life of an 18 year old boy by allowing his mind to rationalize the cohesive information presented by the court and its witnesses. The juror’s name was Mr. Davis, he was initially the only one of 12 jurors to vote not guilty in reason that the young boy, sentenced with first degree murder, may be innocent. I am arguing that system 1 negatively affects the jurors opinion on the case and makes it difficult for Mr. Davis to convince the other jurors of reasonable doubt.
With millions of criminal convictions a year, more than two million people may end up behind bars(Gross). According to Samuel Gross reporter for The Washington Post, writes that also “even one percent amounts to tens of thousands of tragic [wrongful conviction] errors”(Gross). Citizens who are wrongfully convicted are incarcerated for a crime he or she did not commit. Many police officers, prosecutors, and judges are responsible for the verdict that puts innocents into prison. To be able to get exonerated many wait over a decade just to get there case looked at, not many are able to have the opportunity of getting out. People plead guilty for crimes that are not committed by them to avoid trial, but by doing so the right decision wasn’t made.
The cognitive level of analysis aims to study how the inner processes of the mind processes information gained, and how they are interpreted and applied into the real world. Within this level of analysis, it was found that the cognitive and biological factors of our mind influence how we feel, or in other words, our emotions. Emotion can be defined as the body’s response to any specific situation. As all human beings can express how they feel through facial expressions, this suggests that emotions are biological rather than cognitive. However, emotions can be dependent on both the cognitive and biological factors of our body. Cognition is defined as the mental processes of obtaining and processing knowledge through experiences and information gained from our surroundings whereas biology is the study of the internal and physiological mechanisms of behavior of living organisms. There is a set of theories of emotion psychologists came up with in order to explain how the two factors interact in emotion. For example, Darwin’s evolutionary theory, the James-Lange theory, the Cannon-Bard theory, Le Doux’s theory, Schachter and Singer’s theory, and Lazarus’ theory. In order to determine to what extent cognitive and biological factors influence emotion, the theories that supports both
This essay will look at the effects of a jury being abolished and a jury trial existing. There are certain requirements expected from jurors. These include: being aged 18 to 70 years of age, being registered on the electoral roll that they are randomly chosen on by a computer, and the individual has lived in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man for 5 years after the age of 13. This allows the justice process to be fair and equal as all ethnicities have the opportunity of being randomly chosen allowing a bias free justice process.
The play “Twelve Angry Men” shows that relying on twelve people for a life sentencing situation could be bad for the justice system. The justice system could be bad in at least three ways by people being biased, fighting for the wrong side, and people having no common sense.
Why should the color of someone’s skin effect a crime that was committed? In the vignette of “Twelve Angry Men” the author, Reginald Rose addresses racism. According to act three on page 27 the Jurors are coming to a vote on whether or not the boy was guilty or not. The boy claimed that he wasn’t guilty of committing a premeditated murder but Juror number ten said otherwise. The evidence that is shown to prove this point is when all the jurors are all at the table and they all go to the window and turn their backs towards juror number ten, specifically juror numbers three and four. This happened while the vote was nine to three, nine voted innocent and three voted guilty. Three and four turned their backs towards number ten because they disagreed on why they thought the boy was guilty.
The accused are brought to trials, imprisoned, then and/or hanged. These trials are not fair and do not need proof. An accusation is enough to implicate an innocent person.
The jury system originated in England hundreds of years ago. The colonists brought the jury system from England to the United States. In 1733, John Zenger, a printer, printed a newspaper critical for the British Government. His attorney convinced the jury to be in favor for Zenger because his criticisms were true. After this trial, it gave ordinary citizens the freedom of speech and the power to go against the king. The Founding Fathers wanted the people of the United States to be in a democracy or self-government and established the jury system into the constitution. It is expensive and is a long process to start a jury trial. Also, jurors are not as professional as judges and can not determine a fair verdict. The Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) effect might also affect the verdict of the jury. The American jury system should not be used because of it not being cost-effective, the lack of experience of the jury, which leads to justice not being served, and the CSI effect impacting the
Many of the jurors had stereotypes about kids who grow up in slums—and who belong to certain minority groups. Not only did these stereotypes influence the jurors’ tendency to make internal attributions for the boy’s behavior, but these stereotypes also led to biased interpretations of the evidence.
Jury nullification occurs when a jury returns a verdict of "Not Guilty" despite its belief that the defendant is guilty of the violation charged, according to Doug Linder. The jury will nullify a law because it believes that it wrongly applies to the particular defendant. Is this right or wrong? Should a jury have the right to override the law?
Fradella, Henry, Lauren 'Neill, and Adam Fogarty. "The Impact of Daubert on Forensic Science". Pepperdine Law Review 31.4 (2004): 322-361. Print.
As of 1992, the Canadian Criminal Justice system introduced a new Law to its Criminal Code. NCR stands for “Not Criminally Responsible.” It is defined in section 16 of the Criminal Code." (LawFacts, N.d) This law enforces a program which contributes to progress, provides treatment, and just trial towards those with a mental illness. The NCR Law, was established to enforce just trial and stability to those who are mentally ill, within a mental health care facilitation rather than a prison. Therefore NCR, should remain as part of the Criminal Code in Canada
To be committed of a crime the judge or jurors must have enough evidence that there is no other possible explanation, this is referred to as beyond a reasonable doubt. If this is held true, how can someone still be wrongfully convicted? According to Sphohn, Cassia (2014) in 2008 more than 1.6 million United States citizens was imprisoned (p. 5.35). If only .5% of those individuals were innocent that would mean that 8,000 people are wrongfully convicted. That also means there are 8,000 people who are guilty of those crimes free among society. However, there is no way to gather the exact percent of individuals that have been wrongfully convicted.
The principle in law that one is innocent until proven guilty has created much discourse. There are those who feel that the moment that one is arrested, there is reasonable belief that they committed the crime. However, there are those who feel that just as the principle states, one is, and should be taken as a victim and the outcome could be either way: guilty or not guilty. In fact, this argument is supported by the many cases of malicious prosecutions and mistaken identities.
In a New York City, an 18-year-old male from a slum is on a trial claiming that he is responsible for his father death by stabbing him