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The failure of the justice system
Problems within the criminal justice system
Problems within the criminal justice system
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In May 2000 a fifteen-year-old black male was picked up by police in Jacksonville, Florida and eventually charged with the murder of Mary Ann Stephens. His name was Brenton Butler and the documentary Murder on a Sunday Morning covered his trial. Thankfully he was acquitted, but it’s easy to see how close he was to going to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. It is commonly estimated that between 2-5% of all prison inmates are innocent. Brenton could have joined them because of the failure of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Department to administer justice. There were multiple psychological factors that led Brenton Butler to falsely confess to and be charged with the murder. The only witness to the crime, the victim’s husband, was blinded by weapon
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.
Summary of the Case On August 1987, Donald Butler opened a store in Winnipeg, Manitoba, called the “Avenue Boutique”. In this store, Butler sold and rented pornographic publications that were considered “hard core” and sexual paraphernalia. A couple weeks later, the City of Winnipeg Police searched and seized Butler’s sexually explicit materials lawfully. From this, Butler was charged with 173 counts under s. 163 of the Criminal Code. These charges included s. 163(1)(a) which criminalizes the distribution and the possession for distribution of obscene materials, as wells s. 163(2)(a) for selling and exposing obscene material to the public.
I recently read a book called Monster by Walter Dean Myers, in which a sixteen year-old boy named Steve Harmon was arrested for being accused of shooting a drugstore owner, and watched a documentary titled Murder on a Sunday Morning about a fifteen year-old Brenton Butler being charged with murdering a woman at a motel. I found that the book and the documentary had many similarities and differences. I thought this because both cases are about a young African-American boy who is in custody for something that they did not do. Both police investigations didn't go thoroughly and just rushed through to arrest the boys immediately and are centered around a white defense attorney who tries to convince the jury that the male teen did not committed the crime by giving out evidence.
In 1979 two black assailants forced a man and a women at gun point into the man’s car at a drive-in grocery store. As they were going down the highway the perpetrators robbed both victims, then forced the man out of the car. After a failed escape attempted by the woman, the two men drove her to a nearby
On May 7th 2000, fifteen year old Brenton Butler was accused of the murder of Mary Ann Stephens, who had been fatally shot in the head while walking down a breezeway of a hotel with her husband. Two and a half hours later, Butler is seen walking a mile away from where the incident occurred, and is picked up by the police because he fit the description of the individual who shot Mary Ann Stephens. However, the only characteristic of the description that Butler featured was the color of his skin. Police then brought Butler to the scene of the crime in order for Mary Ann Stephens’s husband, James Stephens, to confirm whether or not Butler was the individual who had shot his wife. Almost immediately, Stephens identifies Butler as his wife’s killer.
Paul Butler says in his article, “Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No”, “If you are ever on a jury in a marijuana case, I recommend that you vote ‘not guilty’…As a juror you have this power under the Bill of Rights; if you exercise it, you will become part of a proud tradition of American jurors who helped make our laws fairer.” This is in reference to jury nullification. It is an actual constitutional doctrine that is premised upon the idea that the jury (ordinary citizens), not government officials, should possess the final word on whether an individual should be punished. As Butler explains, jury nullification is for the most part a good thing. It was necessary to end prohibition, it has caused prosecutors over the years to change tactics when
In July of 2008, one of the biggest crime cases devastated the United States nation-wide. The death of Caylee Anthony, a two year old baby, became the most popular topic in a brief amount of time. Caylee’s mother, Casey Anthony, became the main suspect after the child supposedly was kidnapped and went missing. To this day, the Casey Anthony case shocks me because justice, in my opinion, wasn’t served. I feel as if the criminal conviction system became somewhat corrupted in this case. The entire nation, including the court system, knew that Casey Anthony was behind this criminal act, but yet she escaped all charges. I chose this case not only because it’s debatable, but also to help state the obvious, this case was handled the wrong way. Clearly the legal system was biased, which worked in Casey Anthony’s favor, freeing a murderer.
Capital punishment and bias in sentencing is among many issue minorities faced for many years in the better part of the nineteen hundreds. Now it continues to spill into the twenty first century due to the erroneous issues our criminal justice system has caused many people to suffer. In the book Just Mercy authored by Bryan Stevenson, Stevenson explains many cases of injustice. Stevenson goes into details of numerous cases of wrongfully accused people, thirteen and fourteen year olds being sentenced to death and sentences of life without parole for children. These issues Stevenson raises bring to question whether the death penalty is as viable as it should be. It brings to light the many issues our criminal justice system has today. There
If that does not occur to the reader as an issue than factoring in the main problem of the topic where innocent people die because of false accusation will. In addition, this book review will include a brief review of the qualifications of the authors, overview of the subject and the quality of the book, and as well as my own personal thoughts on the book. In the novel Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make It Right authors Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, and Jim Dwyer expose the flaws of the criminal justice system through case histories where innocent men were put behind bars and even on death row because of the miscarriages of justice. Initially, the text promotes and galvanizes progressive change in the legal
In the United States of America, our justice system is here to serve and protect people of the world. Unfortunately, some are able get away with crimes and others are fairly judged. This often happens because their is nothing proving a clear path of innocence or guilt. In the book Monster and the documentary Murder on a Sunday Morning, this can be demonstrated throughout. Based on the information given, the verdict of Steve Harmon seems to be incorrect while the verdict of Brenton Butler seems to be correct.
In the 1930’s a plethora of prejudiced persons are present amidst the prominent Scottsboro trials, a seven-year-long case consisting of false rape allegations made against nine black boys from Scottsboro. When citizens fail to acknowledge their own preconceived ideas and look past the prejudice present in society, justice cannot be served. In the Scottsboro case, the court of Alabama disregards the societal issues surrounding racial discrimination and endorses the guilty verdict and conviction of the nine African American boys. Failing to look past their own personal biases, the jury ignores the unquestionable evidence that would support the boys’ case. Instead, the jury focuses on their predilection
Butler was one of many to be accused of a crime he didn’t commit. In 1993, a woman got
Both letting an innocent man in prison and letting guilty one go free are things that shouldn't happen but happen and are wrong . In my opinion, having a innocent man go to jail is worse. One example of this is the case of Daniel Butler who was accused and convicted of murder and was serving time in jail until a new discovery.
For over two years, Wallace’s trial was delayed because of “DNA evidence from murdered victims, and jury selection” (Montaldo). Not only was there meticulous choosing of the jury to avoid bias, but there was also careful analyzation of the evidence to assure that the trial was sound. Of January 7, 199, the jury found Wallace guilty of “nine counts of first-degree murder, each on the basis of malice, premeditation, and deliberation, and under the felony murder rule” (“FindLaw’s Supreme Court of North Carolina Case and Opinions”). These nine counts of murder were decided by a open-minded, neutral jury, we know this because of the long time taken to select the jury. Gaskins argued that two of the jurors should have been dismissed because they claimed that he should be given the verdict of execution; but when inspected wholly, both jurors gave no opinion to Gaskins “guilt or innocence in the present case” (“State V. Gaskins”). Every claim that Gaskins made about the jury, the Supreme Court examined fully, which caused the jurors selected to be people who have no opinion of the case. Avoiding bias and making the trial even more honest in deciding Gaskins’ fate. Gaskins’ and Wallace’s verdict being decided by a jury rather than a judge, shows that not just one person person who made a decision about their fates, but it was many people who shared the same perception of these
“The biggest crime in the U.S. criminal justice system is that it is a race-based institution where African-Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people(Quigley).” In a study that was observed in Texas, the probably was higher for defendants that were black men to be convicted to death sentence than a white man, and death was more likely to be a conviction for white victims than black victims (Phillips). The the same study we see that, “The multivariate models indicate that the odds of seeking death are 43 percent lower on behalf of black victims compared to white victims. The transformation occurred because black victims were twice as likely to be killed in murders that had multiple victims. So the DA sought death less on behalf of black victims than white victims. The bar was set higher for seeking death on behalf of black victims.” As we can observe there is prejudice in the justice system, and is a factor we must examine closely in capital punishment trials. Although we may not realize it, we all have stereotypes filed somewhere in our memory and we all hold prejudices, we are blind to facts and we must learn to overcome that. There are numerous convictions in which criminals are convicted unjustly because of the DA’s bias. In the same we need to establish a system of checks and balances in the Judicial system, so that we can achieve the least