Michael Johnson,also known as, Tiger Mandingo is a gay black male. He was a college wrestler at Lindenwood University. Johnson was HIV-positive. He would normally go on random hookup apps and have unprotected sex with complete strangers. On October 13,2013 Johnson was accused of infecting a man with HIV. Although Johnson pleads not guilty, he was still charged to 60 years in prison. This is currently an important or trendy topic because it is all over social media and it has been a controversial topic. Many have questions as to why was the sentence so harsh and others say it is what he deserves. Michael Johnson’s sentence was not justifiable because the laws used to convict him are outdated, he was poorly represented,and he was not judged …show more content…
by a jury of his peers. Johnson’s sentence is not justifiable because the laws that were used to convict him are outdated. The laws used to charge HIV-positive people have been around for many years and have not been updated since the 1990s. They have not been updated to match up with the latest medical advances. In the article, “ Black Body on Trial: The Conviction of HIV-Positive ‘Tiger Mandingo’,” Thrasher explains how “many epidemiologists and AIDS advocates say the laws — which single out HIV — can actually fuel the epidemic by making people afraid to get tested and treated, and by fostering the dangerous belief that only the HIV-positive person is responsible for preventing transmission of the virus.” Since the laws are outdated many people are scared to get tested for HIV because if they don’t know they have the virus and they do transmit HIV they will not be punished for it. In Johnson’s case, some say he did know he had HIV and transmitted it on purpose and others say he didn’t and in that case he was punished for knowing and not disclosing.The laws that are still around that criminalize HIV are not only outdated they are not medically accurate. In the article, “No-One With Undetectable Viral Load,Gay or Heterosexual,Transmit HIV in First Two Years of PARTNER Study” Gus Cairns States “Statistical analysis shows that the maximum likely chance of transmission via anal sex from someone on successful HIV treatment was 1% a year for any anal sex and 4% for anal sex with ejaculation where the HIV-negative partner was receptive;but the true likelihood is probably much nearer to zero than this.” Meaning that if HIV-positive people take their medication and take good care of themselves there will be almost a zero chance of them transmitting the virus. In Johnson’s case, all he would have had to do was take medication for his HIV and no one else would be at risk. Some people might say that Johnson’s sentence is justifiable because he broke the law. Although I grant that he broke the law, I still maintain that the laws are outdated and not caught up with our latest medical advances dealing with HIV. I also believe that his sentence was too harsh. In the article “ Black Body on Trial: The Conviction of HIV-Positive ‘Tiger Mandingo’,” Thrasher states “Johnson has no prior criminal record — something his public defender did not highlight for the jury. Still, his sentence is longer than the average sentence for almost every other crime in the state. According to the Missouri Department of Corrections, Johnson’s sentence exceeds the average for physical assault (19.9 years), forcible rape with a weapon (28.2 years), and even second-degree murder (25.2 years).” Johnson was given 60 years for transmitting HIV when you only get 25.2 for second-degree murder. It is clearly seen how outdated the laws are that you only receive 25.2 years for killing someone, but 60 for infecting someone with HIV. Especially now that we have had all these medical advances. Currently, HIV is not a death sentence you can actually live a normal life by taking special medication for the virus. Johnson’s sentence is not justifiable because of all the medical advance. Now transmitting HIV is not killing anyone which means that the laws are too outdated to judge someone under them. Johnson's sentence is not justifiable because he was poorly represented in his trial .
During his trial, he was assigned a public attorney who seemed to be new to the job. In the article,“ Black Body on Trial: The Conviction of HIV-Positive ‘Tiger Mandingo’,” Thrasher explains how from the start Johnson's lawyer Donovan had to be reminded by the opposing lawyer “that she’d meant to say the opposite: that her client was innocent until proven otherwise.” Clearly, Johnson’s lawyer was not properly prepared and could not even recite one of the most simple statements there are in a case. If Donavan couldn’t get that right how could it be that she could possibly defend Johnson’s case. Thrasher goes on to describe Donavan in the trial, “Donovan, who appeared many years Groenweghe junior, clutched her notes, the papers sometimes shaking. Donovan routinely asked Judge Cunningham for his permission to approach the bench and she rarely made eye contact with anyone. When she spoke, she often stammered and stumbled over her words.” Donovan seemed to be nervous making it easier to attack her with questions that could dig a deeper hole for Johnson. She was not prepared to defend someone but that was who Johnson was assigned and all he could do was hope she could defend him. Johnson was not able to acquire an experienced lawyer to defend him in …show more content…
court. Johnson’s sentence is not justifiable because he was not judged by a jury of his peers.
The jury was predominately white. Johnson was judged by people that were different from his in many ways. In the article, “ Black Body on Trial: The Conviction of HIV-Positive ‘Tiger Mandingo’,” Thrasher describes the jury by saying “Of the 51 potential jurors, only one appeared to be nonwhite — a female, African-American retired nurse — and all identified as straight. Most looked to be in their fifties or older. During questioning, about half of the would-be jurors said being gay was a ‘choice.’ Only a third agreed that being gay was ‘not a sin.’ No potential juror acknowledged having HIV. All said they believed HIV-positive people who do not tell their sexual partners that they have the virus should be prosecuted.” None of the jurors could relate at all with Johnson. He was all on his own and the jurors had already come into the courtroom knowing that they would prosecute Johnson for transmitting the virus. This wasn’t the only problem with the jury it was all because the opposing lawyer would as Thrasher explains in the article, “ Black Body on Trial: The Conviction of HIV-Positive ‘Tiger Mandingo’,” how Groenweghe would weed out the jurors by asking questions about homosexuals. The younger jurors that were pro-gay did not make it, which could be seen as choosing people that are biased towards the gay community. The jury was not on Johnson’s side from the very beginning making it very
hard for Johnson’s lawyer to convince them. Therefore, Michael Johnson’s sentence was not justifiable because the laws used to convict him are outdated, he was poorly represented,and he was not judged by a jury of his peers. I believe if Johnson would have had the proper education he would have been able to understand what HIV was and what the laws were. Not only would he not be in jail he could have avoided the whole situation.
Steve Bogira, a prizewinning writer, spent a year observing Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse. The author focuses on two main issues, the death penalty and innocent defendants who are getting convicted by the pressure of plea bargains, which will be the focus of this review. The book tells many different stories that are told by defendants, prosecutors, a judge, clerks, and jurors; all the people who are being affected and contributing to the miscarriage of justice in today’s courtrooms.
“The 1910 Jeffries-Johnson Fight and Its Impact” was by far my favorite reading from the text this semester, which is the main reason for my choosing of this topic. Throughout this article, I found it to be incredibly intriguing how detailed it was on the struggles that Johnson went through. Discussing the difficult experiences he had as a rising black athlete and then to end up with a white woman who, to many, could or could not have been considered a prostitute. All of the events during Johnson’s life make him such an amazing person and a very interesting athlete to learn more about.
The court system includes the judges, jury, prosecutors and defense attorneys. The Attorneys convince the suspects to take plea bargains, the judges are sometimes unfair in the decisions they make, and the prosecutors overlook exculpatory evidence. Picking cotton shows in detail some common errors of the court system. During Ronald Cotton 's first trial, His Attorney, Phil Moseley, tried to bring a memory expert to testify on the unreliability of memory but the judge denied his request. After Ronald 's case was overturned by the supreme court, he got a new trial in another court which had even more problems and bias. First, there was racial prejudice during the jury selection. “Four black people from the community got called in for jury duty. The judge himself dismissed one of them and then Mr turner made sure none of the rest sat on my jury” Ronald cotton stated. Because he was black, the four jurors were dismissed and he was left with an all white jury and two white Alternates. Second, the judge “Held something called a “voir dire” hearing, which Phil explained meant he would have to put up all the evidence about Poole in front of the Judge, but not the Jury”(129). Also, Ronald Cotton 's defense attorney explained to the judge the parallelism between Bobby Poole 's case and the rape Ronald Cotton was charged with. Despite the weak physical evidence against Ronald Cotton, the
In the film, A Civil Action, Trial Procedure was shown throughout the entire movie. There are many steps that need to be completed before a verdict and judgment can be reached. These steps are the pleadings, methods of discovery, pretrial hearings, jury selection, opening statements, introduction of evidence, cross examinations, closing arguments, instructions to the jury, and the verdict and judgment. The case in this movie was actually called Anderson v. Cryovac. The plaintiffs are the Anderson family, the Gamache family, the Kane family, the Robbins family, the Toomey family, and the Zona family. The plaintiffs’ attorneys are Jan Schlichtmann, Joe Mulligan, Anthony Roisman, Charlie Nesson, and Kevin Conway. The two co- defendants are W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods. The two co-defendants’ attorneys are William Cheeseman, Jerome Facher, Neil Jacobs, and Michael Keating.
It was a mistaken identity case where the distressed raped women picked out the wrong black man. Even though the conviction was overturned due to DNA evidence, a mistaken eyewitness testimony led to a wrongful conviction that the Burlington Police upheld without question due to prejudice feelings toward determine Ronald Cotton (Thompson-Cannino, Cotton and Torneo 283). Ronald had his whole family testify that he had been home the night Jennifer was raped however because he had mixed up his dates when he originally confessed that police assumed he was lying despite what he and his family said. The other indication of racism on the police force was when the second rape victim did not pick Ronald Cotton out of the physical lineup; she claimed she was terrified of the black men standing in front of her and just needed to leave, even though she knew it saw Ronald that had raped her (Thompson-Cannino, Cotton and Torneo 129). Ronald was believed to be guilty and was trying to prove his innocence from the beginning. This simply cannot occur in a justice system where one is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty; racism played a part in convicting this innocent man. Even during the second court case when he was trying to prove his innocence he remembered feeling the jury turn and look at him, "every single one of their white faces" believed how terrible of a man he was (Thompson-Cannino, Cotton and Torneo
Seymour Wishman was a former defense lawyer and prosecutor, and the author of "Anatomy of a Jury," the novel "Nothing Personal" and a memoir "Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer." "Anatomy of a Jury" is Seymour Wishman's third book about the criminal justice system and those who participate in it. He is a known writer and very highly respected "person of the law." Many believe that the purpose of this book is to put you in the shoes of not only the defendant but into the shoes of the prosecutor, the judge, the defense lawyer and above all the jury. He did not want to prove a point to anyone or set out a specific message. He simply wanted to show and explain to his readers how the jury system really works. Instead of writing a book solely on the facts on how a jury system works, Wishman decides to include a story so it is easier and more interesting for his readers to follow along with.
Juror #10, a garage owner, segregates and divides the world stereotypically into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ ‘Us’ being people living around the rich or middle-class areas, and ‘them’ being people of a different race, or possessing a contrasting skin color, born and raised in the slums (poorer parts of town). It is because of this that he has a bias against the young man on trial, for the young man was born in the slums and was victim to domestic violence since the age of 5. Also, the boy is of a Hispanic descent and is of a different race than this juror, making him fall under the juror’s discriminatory description of a criminal. This is proven on when juror #10 rants: “They don’t need any real big reason to kill someone, either. You know, they get drunk, and bang, someone’s lying in the gutter… most of them, it’s like they have no feelings (59).
In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Batson. The Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment forbids the prosecutor from challenging potential jurors solely on account of their race or on the assumption that black jurors as a group will be unable to consider the state’s case ag...
Racism was running ramped during an intense court room argument, these words from Christopher Darden left people not knowing what and who to believe “There's a mountain of evidence pointing to this man's guilt, but when you mention that word to this jury, or any African-American, it blinds people. It'll blind the jury. It'll blind the truth. They won't be able to discern what's true and what's not (Noble).” When evidence of Fuhrman being racist had surfaced to the public it instantly changed where everyone stood with the case.
The first vote ended with eleven men voting guilty and one man not guilty. We soon learn that several of the men voted guilty since the boy had a rough background not because of the facts they were presented with. Although numerous jurors did make racist or prejudice comments, juror ten and juror three seemed to be especially judgmental of certain types of people. Juror three happened to be intolerant of young men and stereotyped them due to an incident that happened to his son. In addition, the third juror began to become somewhat emotional talking about his son, showing his past experience may cloud his judgment. Juror ten who considered all people from the slums “those people” was clearly prejudiced against people from a different social background. Also, Juror ten stated in the beginning of the play “You 're not going to tell us that we 're supposed to believe that kid, knowing what he is. Listen, I 've lived among 'em all my life. You can 't believe a word they say. I mean, they 're born liars.” Juror ten did not respect people from the slums and believed them to all act the same. As a result, Juror ten believed that listening to the facts of the case were pointless. For this reason, the tenth juror already knew how “those people” acted and knew for sure the boy was not innocent. Even juror four mentioned just how the slums are a “breeding ground
The movie ‘Philadelphia’ explores prejudice against having AIDS [also being homosexual]. In the film, Andrew Beckett (played by Tom Hanks) is a lawyer with a huge opportunity as a lawyer in front of him. When he finds out he had AIDS he chose not to tell his firm mentor about either his disease or his sexual orientation. Andrew is fired for, as his firm members claim, ‘incompetence’ however we can see it is more. Andrew was fired because he had AIDS and was assumed gay (at this time AIDS was know the ‘gay disease’). The movie shows Andrews struggle to be treated equally.
The criminal trial process is able to reflect the moral and ethical standards of society to a great extent. For the law to be effective, the criminal trial process must reflect what is accepted by society to be a breach of moral and ethical conduct and the extent to which protections are granted to the victims, the offenders and the community. For these reasons, the criminal trial process is effectively able to achieve this in the areas of the adversary system, the system of appeals, legal aid and the jury system.
In the seven years of trials, appeals, and retrials, the Scottsboro Boys faced monumental challenges legally. Their trials and retrials were not even remotely close to fair and just. These trials set a precedent for similar cases in both the South and North. This case caused protests all over Europe and America, fighting the injustice the Boys suffered. Similar actions are being taken for gay rights today. There may not be a sensational criminal case involving gay rights, but there certainly have been many landmark and newsworthy civil cases in the state and federal supreme courts in the United States for gay rights recently. The injustices shown in the Scottsboro cases may not be able to be resolved for the nine Boys, but we can learn from these inequities and apply them to modern day issues, like gay rights. Fiat iustitia ruat caelum.
The topic of capital punishment has been the subject of debate for many years as it should be on the minds of society. A society that seek to found justice for the victim who lost their lives at the hand of another human beings. The critics of capital punishment would argue that the government has over reached it authority and have sought to judge in God stead. However, the advocates of capital punishment will argue that many nations whether modern or ancient has used capital punishment as a method of justice.
There is no such thing as justice - in or out of court. Clarence Darrow i