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Racial discrimination in the united states criminal justice system
Racial discrimination in the united states criminal justice system
The causes and effects of racial profiling in law enforcement
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My opinion is that George Zimmerman should be guilty. Why I think that is because he said that Trayvon Martin punched him in the nose and slammed his head against the cement but there was none of George Zimmerman’s blood on the crime scene. Only Trayvon’s blood was found. I would think that since Trayvon punched George (according to Zimmerman) that there would be from George on the crime scene but there wasn’t any found. Trayvon was in a hoodie walking in a neighborhood in the rain. George Zimmerman was part of the neighborhood watch and he seen Trayvon while he was driving home. George thought that Trayvon Martin was up to no good and looked suspicious. He thought he looked suspicious because he was walking through the middle of houses and
wearing a hoodie. Zimmerman followed him and called the P.D. He told the dispatcher if they wanted to get out of his car and follow/look for him and he police said no they don’t want him to do that. The police asked him what street was he on and he didn’t know so he got out of his car and looked for a street sign. He told the officer who was on the phone the street name then hung up. I think that he wasn’t looking for a sign he was looking for Trayvon. George Zimmerman was probably seeing what was Trayvon up to. When he was walking back to his car Trayvon said “Hey man, you got a problem?” Zimmerman responded, “No man I don’t got a problem”. Then supposedly Trayvon threw the first punch but I think that Zimmerman did.
On the night of February 26, 2012 “George Zimmerman who was the coordinator for his Sanford neighborhood watch association is charged with second-degree murder in the death of a young boy. Trayvon Martin, an unarmed high school student from Miami, Florida. (Alvarez) The case began in a small city of Sanford as a routine homicide but soon evolved into a civil rights case, examining racial profiling. On the night of the attack Zimmerman was told not to get out of his car when he was following Trayvon. He described Trayvon as a “guy who looks up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something” Trayvon had his back to Zimmerman the whole time he was on the phone with the Dispatcher, from what the conversation was saying. When the dispatcher asked Zimmerman “is the guy white, black, or Hispanic? “Zimmerman says that he “looks” black, Zimmerman still has yet to see if Trayvon was black, white, or even Hispanic because Trayvon was walking the other direction. Later on in the conversation is when Zimmerman said “now he’s just staring at me”. That would have been the right time to mention the race of Trayvon. As the dispatcher was asking mo...
The case involved a neighborhood watchman, who happened to be on duty when he saw a young black man wearing a sweater jacket called a “hoodie”, walking through the neighborhood. George Zimmerman, the watchman, who was twenty-eight years old at the time, called authorities about a suspicious character walking around in his neighborhood. The authorities told him not to do anything; just continue with his rounds and not worry. Zimmerman, however, decided he would take matters into his own hands. He confronted the young man; they got into a brawl and Zimmerman pulled out a gun and shot and killed Martin. That premise will play a role in this paper as an argument as to why George Zimmerman should have been convicted of committing a crime. Even if the jury could not have reasons to convict him of the second degree murder of Trayvon Martin; they had other choices.
Leonard Peltier is currently serving time in the Leavenworth federal penitentiary for the shooting deaths of two Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agents. According to FBI documents, at around 11:50 A.M. on June 26th, 1975, agents Jack Color and Ron Williams were supposedly searching for Jimmy Eagle, a thief wanted for stealing a pair of cowboy boots. The agents encroached on the Jumping Bull Compound in Oglala, South Dakota of the Pine Ridge reservation, in two separate vehicles that no one could recognize (Incident). In this area, there were several members of the American Indian Movement (AIM). After the intrusion of the agents, someone-and it is unsure who-fired a shot and a shoot out began. By the end of the shoot out at Pine Ridge, Williams, Color, and one AIM activist, Joe Stuntz Killsright, were dead (Incident). Peltier was one of the AIM members at the Jumping Bull Compound, and ultimately he was charged and convicted on murder charges. There is a great controversy surrounding the Peltier case. A large contingency of both domestic and international citizens and organizations feel that Peltier has been wrongly convicted, while the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other government authorities here feel as justice was served.
found behind the guest house was proven by DNA testing to have O.J.'s blood and
One can either be innocent or guilty. Likewise, one can choose to either condemn or empathize with the accused. These binaries prove amply important throughout Sherman Alexie's 1996 poem entitled "Capital Punishment," in which a prison cook recounts the day of an inmate's execution. Throughout the poem, the speaker parenthetically inserts on five separate occasions the phrase "I am not a witness," but near the conclusion of the poem, he contradicts his previous denials, proclaiming, "I am a witness." Readers of the poem may at first be puzzled by the speaker's repeated denial that he is a witness followed by his eventual declaration that he is, in fact, a witness; however, further examination reveals that the speaker, by progressing from condemnation
The “Stand Your Ground” law was first adopted in the state of florida in 2005. This law did not gain national attention until the shooting death of unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, in Sanford, florida, where the shooter, George Zimmerman used the “Stand Your Ground” law as his basis for defending himself against Trayvon Martin to the Sanford Police Department. However, George Zimmerman’s legal defense team did not utilize the law to argue his innocence during his trial. But the damage had been done because soon after other cases in florida began to sprout up with “Stand Your Ground” as the driving force.
The Zimmerman case allowed me to be aware of something that was right in front of me. At a young age, my mother's significant other was arrested and imprisoned for "trafficking drugs". My mother had always maintained that he was initially arrested due to racial profiling, as there was no sufficient evidence to warrant the police to search his car. Despite this information being told to me as a child, I remained blind to the effects that such a system of injustice could have on your economic status, mental health, etc. However, I believe that the outcome of the Zimmerman trial opened my eyes to this effect. I believe that Trayvon Martin's family most likely received the same financial and emotional stresses due to the racial injustice associated with their experience. However, they had lost their son. Following the shooting of Trayvon Martin, I began to understand the effect that systemic racism could have on the lives of Black people, and how it had already been affecting
Few trials have been polarized to the extent that the Jodi Arias murder trial has. There are several factors set out in determining the proper punishment in a case like this, but does this trial meet all the criteria? There is a lot of evidence to go over in respect to the Jodi Arias trial and much of it is very compelling, but do people understand the difference between a woman guilty of murder and a woman who is legally eligible for the death penalty. Many people do not recognize the boundaries between legal and personal belief when it comes to murder trials. People tend to have a preconceived notion of the crime committed and their own ideas regarding the death penalty, but not many people take into account the specifics that must be met in order to enforce a law. So the question now remains; did Jodi Arias commit a murder that is eligible for the death penalty? More importantly, should Jodi Arias receive the death penalty based on the criteria? Jodi Arias should receive the death penalty because she has been convicted of murder, and also because the murder fits all criteria set forth by the state of Arizona in regards to being eligible for the death penalty.
First, let's examine the facts of this "case." But what, you might wonder, qualifies as a provable fact? For this story, we will assume that any claim made by the narrator that could be backed up by an eye-witness is true. Thus, we know that when Cal enters George's house the night of the murder, George's wife, also in the house, observes them as they drink whiskey. She sees George swell into anger and break two chairs. She also views George as he grabs his shotgun and heads off to Harvey's with Cal. Consequently, in the next few days, she, an eyewitness to the events in her home, goes around, "telling every one that her husband and Cal Long were going to kill someone" (5). Moreover, we know that Harvey Groves is in fact murdered--since his body is found by someone--however, we don't know much about the occurrence of his murder since no outside witness observes the murder--unless, of course, the observer is involved in the murder.
PJ Williams. The Monsterization of Trayvon Martin In defending George Zimmerman; his attorneys exploited ugly racial stereotypes. British Library Serials. NATION -NEW YORK- 297, no. 7/8, (August 19, 2013): 17-22
In the Trayvon Martin case, the media frames the situation in a certain way. The media framed the story to drive up ratings, not necessarily for the truth. According to the eText in Module 2, framing is defined as “the idea of agenda setting in the sense that it suggests not only that media can tell us what topics to think about, but also may influence how we think about a given issue or problem depicted in mass media” (Module 2, The Importance of Mass Media). Framing also refers to the techniques mass media uses to emphasize certain values and themes over others. One of the techniques used to frame this case is dueling scenarios, according to the Orlando Sentinel Series article, “Dueling Scenarios.” The dueling scenarios, or competing viewpoints
There had been some complications with the stand your ground law before the Trayvon Martin case but his case was definitely the most well known. When the verdict was in, America was shocked when the jury declared Zimmerman not guilty. Then the stand your ground law became a household name as people were discussing their point of view of each other and of their state. Next I will be discussing the stance of four other states regarding the stand your ground law. The stand your ground law is important for the safety of citizens but it needs to be fixed.
This case is about a 16-year-old kid from Miami named Trayvon Martin. On the night of February 26th, Trayvon walked from his father's house in a gated community to a nearby store. When walking back, he was spotted by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer. There have been a number of break-ins in the neighborhood over the last few weeks and Zimmerman thought that a young black man walking in the rain and wearing a hooded sweatshirt looked suspicious. Zimmerman then called 911 to report the person who "might be on drugs."
I believe that under certain circumstances that capital punishment should be allowed because if someone is going to commit mass murder they should pay with the ultimate human right which is of their life. This topic has been widely thought of in the world with a few philosophers really encompassing my views. Those are the views of Ernest Van Den Haag and Bruce Fein. Philosophers who oppose our views are such like Justice William Brennan and Hugo Adam Bedau. I will prove my point using the ideas of deterrence and morality of the issue of capital punishment. If the government would show that if you kill someone there will be a consequence for their actions and that the consequence would be equal to what they have done. The population will see that it isn’t worth taking another humans life. If we were to kill people that are committing these mass killings of innocent people there would not be as many criminals around. Therefore the streets would be a place people wouldn’t be afraid of anymore.
The heaviest punishment towards convicts is death penalty in law. It means to atone for an offense is dead. Of course, it will not execute for every criminal. Death penalty is only for felons. For example, a people who murdered someone would not get the death penalty. The death penalty is for murders who related to the smuggling of aliens or committed during a drug-related drive-by shooting. Sometimes, however, the felons also can avoid the death because some countries (or actually states) don’t allow death penalty. Then, what decision would the convict get? It is a life sentence, which means the prisoner should be in a prison until he or she dies. However, it is not good idea to keep felons. Death penalty should be allowed and get more active because life sentence is costly, unsafe, and insincere for a victim and the family.