Throughout the history of the United States of America, all instances of anyone breaking a rule is handled in court with a judge and jury. It is up to the jury and the judge to decide a final verdict on whether the person is guilty or not, and then they must decide their sentencing. However, our court system has slowly become more and more corrupt over time. For example, when reading Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, we are taken in by the case of Walter McMillian, where racism played a huge role in his sentencing in 198. Another example would be the O.J. Simpson case that took place in 1995, where racism played a large role. Which ultimately leads me to the conclusion of who really is the king of our court system, it’s definitely not the judge… …show more content…
it’s the people. In Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, it takes the reader through a journey of different court cases where racism controlled the court.
The case that struck me the hardest was Walter McMillian’s case that took place in Monroeville, Alabama in 1986. Walter McMillian was an active African-American member of his community in Monroeville until 1986 when he was convicted and sentenced to death row for the murder of a local young white woman. His trial consisted of three African- American witnesses who testified against him stating that he was at his church’s fish cry during the crime, however the judge overrode them and the cases only lasted a day and a half before he was sentenced to death row.
However, Bryan Stevenson took the postconvicition case where he proved that the state’s witnesses had lied, and Walter McMillian was released in 1993 after spending six years on death row for a crime that he did not commit. This is a prime example of how the people control the court system. In this case, racism controlled the court, they wanted to frame an innocent African-American man of a murder in the act of racism. This wasn’t the only example of a case where the people ruled the court, it even went as far as celebrity murder cases on the other side of the
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country. Another prime example of the people ruling the justice system is the infamous O.J.
Simpson case that was concluded on October 2, 1995. This case took place in Los Angeles, California, where former all-pro NFL player O.J. Simpson was accused of the murder of his ex-wife. There were numerous amounts of evidence leading to the conclusion that O.J. Simpson was in fact guilty of the murder. However, his team of attorneys and lawyers came together and came to the conclusion that this case was bigger than just the murder, it had racial fire behind it, they noticed that all of the African-American’s were on his side so they ran with it. They did everything in their power to control the jury and getting as many African-American jurors as they could possibly get. After that, they found evidence of racism behind the police officer who’d made the accusation that O.J. Simpson murder his former wife. They slowly turned the case into a racial issue making the African-Americans very upset with the justice system. The case lasted over a year and O.J. was eventually proven not
guilty. There are plenty of cases in Just Mercy where the reader is exposed to where the court system is controlled by the people and the racism in our country. The author, Bryan Stevenson does an incredible job of taking the reader’s emotions in to full drive by taking us through all of the cases where people were wrongly accused and convicted for innocent crimes and the large roles that he played in helping those people. He goes on in his book to talk about our justice system and how corrupt it is today. The people are the Kings of the court in the United States justice system today. The justice system is not where it should be. Today, our justice system isn’t based of facts, nor evidence, or even a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the people truly run the court. There are plenty of cases such as the Walter McMillian case and the O.J. Simpson case where racism controlled the court. It truly is sickening to know that our country’s justice system has turned into that. Which is why we have to make a stand today to turn around our justice system!
The hypocrisy and double standard that allowed whites to bring harm to blacks without fear of any repercussions had existed for years before the murder Tyson wrote about occurred in May of 1970 (Tyson 2004, 1). Lynching of black men was common place in the south as Billie Holiday sang her song “Strange Fruit” and the eyes of justice looked the other way. On the other side of the coin, justice was brought swiftly to those blacks who stepped out of line and brought harm to the white race. Take for instance Nate Turner, the slave who led a rebellion against whites. Even the Teel’s brought their own form of justice to Henry Marrow because he “said something” to one of their white wives (1).
Bryan Stevenson first got into death penalty cases to gain experience for school. The kids at Harvard advanced degrees and obtained great amount of experience. Therefore, Bryan felt pressure to catch up, but he wanted to “something with the poor, America’s history of racial inequality, and the struggle to be equitable and
...cision-making process, McCleskey has clearly been wrongfully punished for his crime. The death sentence imposed on him was decided in a racially bias manner that targeted him for his black background. The fact that his victim was White and not Black increased the likelihood of his receiving the death sentence. The prosecution itself, with no guidelines to follow during the sentencing procedure, unfairly inflicted the penalty upon McCleskey. By meeting all three prongs of this standard, he has proven that he was deprived of the equal protection of the laws as clearly stated in the 14th Amendment. For this reason, the decision in McCleskey v. Kemp should be overturned, and racial disparities should definitely be considered relevant when determining a fair and substantively just outcome for future cases.
“Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it’s set a rolling it must increase (Charles Caleb Colton).” Colton describes that once corruption has begun, it is difficult to stop. Corruption has existed in this country, let alone this very planet, since the beginning of time. With corruption involves: money, power, and favoritism. Many people argue today that racism is still a major problem to overcome in today’s legal system. American author (and local Chicago resident) Steve Bogira jumps into the center of the United States justice system and tells the story of what happens in a typical year for the Cook Country Criminal Courthouse, which has been noted as one of the most hectic and busiest felony courthouses in the entire country. After getting permission from one of the courthouse judges’ (Judge Locallo) he was allowed to venture in and get eyewitness accounts of what the American Legal System is and how it operates. Not only did he get access to the courtroom but: Locallo’s chambers, staff, even his own home. In this book we get to read first hand account of how America handles issues like: how money and power play in the court, the favoritism towards certain ethnic groups, and the façade that has to be put on by both the defendants and Cook County Workers,
Racial discrimination has been an immense problem in our society for a very long time. The fact that the race of a victim plays a role in his or her sentencing is appalling. Discrimination within our society needs to come to an end. It’s frightening to think that if you are a minority facing a capital punishment case, which you might be found guilty only because of the color of your skin.
Bryan Stevenson is a defence attorney for a man named Herbert Richardson who 's on
Humanity instructs us that we must behave with tolerance and respect towards all. Just Mercy exemplifies how that is not the case for many Americans. Critical Race Theory is a theory which focuses on the experiences of people who are minorities. It argues that people who are minorities in the United States are oppressed and, because of the state of being oppressed, creates fundamental disadvantages (Lecture 4.7). A study conducted for the case McCleskey v. Kemp revealed that when a black defendant killed a white victim, it increased the likelihood the black defendant would receive the death penalty (Stevenson, 2014). Looking at this fact through the lens of a critical race theorist, it illustrates how unconscious racism is ignored by our legal system. The actuality that, statistically, people of color have a higher chance of getting sentenced to death than white people is a blatant example of inequality. In Chapter 8, Stevenson discusses the case of multiple juveniles who were incarcerated and sentenced to death in prison. These juveniles who were sent to adult prisons, where juveniles are five times more likely to be the victims of sexual assault, show an innate inequality towards minors (Stevenson, 2014). Ian Manuel, George Stinney, and Antonio Nunez were all only fourteen-years-old when they were condemned to die in prison. Although they did commit crimes, the purpose of the juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate young offenders. Trying juveniles in adult court represents a prejudice against age, which Stevenson sought to fight by working on appeals for Manuel and Nunez (Stevenson, 2014). His humanity shines through once again, as he combats the justice system to give the adolescents another chance at life, rather than having them die in prison. The way prisoners with mental and/or physical disabilities are treated while incarcerated is also extremely
This research essay discusses racial disparities in the sentencing policies and process, which is one of the major factors contributing to the current overrepresentation of minorities in the judicial system, further threatening the African American and Latino communities. This is also evident from the fact that Blacks are almost 7 times more likely to be incarcerated than are Whites (Kartz, 2000). The argument presented in the essay is that how the laws that have been established for sentencing tend to target the people of color more and therefore their chances of ending up on prison are higher than the whites. The essay further goes on to talk about the judges and the prosecutors who due to different factors, tend to make their decisions
In several cases and studies, there is a substantial amount of racial bias in the criminal justice system. In fact, the 1978 McClesky conviction has proven to support Baldus’s study in 1998. Warren McClesky, an African American male, was found guilty of killing a Georgia police officer. The legal team who represented McClesky exposed a study that showed how biased racial inequality is in the death penalty, but the court contended the argument because “disparities in sentencing are an inevitable part of our criminal justice system” (Touré). Furthermore, race has always been a serious matter in the Supreme Court and other government administrations, but they fail to recognize the
When a person of color is being sentenced the unjustness of sentencing is blatantly shown such as in the article Race Sentencing and Testimony which stated, “ These scholars conclude that black male arrestees “face significantly more severe charges conditional on arrest offense and other observed characteristics” and attribute this primarily to prosecution charging decisions” (Mauer 4). This piece of writing explains that for no other reason than race do these people get convicted far more significantly than others who have the same charge but are white, which continues as far as giving a person of color the max sentence that they can have on a certain charge just for the color of their skin. The justice system has turned into the opposite of what it claims to be and continues to grow as a racist overseer, bashing down on those that they believe should be punished as harshly as possible simply for the color of their skin. The system has gone as deep as to making it so that even if a person has not committed a crime, but are being charged for it they can agree to a plea bargain, which makes it so even though the person did not do it the system is going to have them convicted of it anyway (Quigley 1). “As one young man told me ‘who wouldn’t rather do three years for a crime they didn’t commit than risk twenty-five years
Is our justice system fair to all? Although the answer to this question is an opinion, there are pieces of evidence and commentary to defend this argument. The process of the legal system itself is all an opinion because in the end, the only person whose judgments matter is the judge himself. Over time, the wrong people have been arrested for the wrong things. Living in the United States, a country where crimes are committed constantly; we count on this system to make the right decisions. It is important that each case is treated equally when carrying out justice to keep the United States a safe place, to form a nation with good education, and to teach people from judging right from wrong. However, sometimes rights are taken from the wrong people. Our legal system is creating a dangerous path for African Americans in our country because of its’ highest per capita incarceration rate, its’ favoritism towards those in power, and its failure to carry out justice to protect people from the dangerous acts of those who are defined as criminals.
Race plays a large factor in showing how you are viewed in society. Although there is no longer slavery and separate water fountains, we can still see areas of our daily life clearly affected by race. One of these areas is the criminal justice system and that is because the color of your skin can easily yet unfairly determine if you receive the death penalty. The controversial evidence showing that race is a large contributing factor in death penalty cases shows that there needs to be a change in the system and action taken against these biases. The issue is wide spread throughout the United States and can be proven with statistics. There is a higher probability that a black on white crime will result in a death penalty verdict than black on black or white on black. Race will ultimately define the final ruling of the sentence which is evident in the racial disparities of the death penalty. The amount of blacks on death row can easily be seen considering the majority of the prison population is black or blacks that committed the same crime as a white person but got a harsher sentence. The biases and prejudices that are in our society relating to race come to light when a jury is selected to determine a death sentence. So what is the relationship between race and the death penalty? This paper is set out to prove findings of different race related sentences and why blacks are sentenced to death more for a black on white crime. Looking at the racial divide we once had in early American history and statistics from sources and data regarding the number of blacks on death row/executed, we can expose the issues with this racial dilemma.
Fairchild, H. & Cowan, G (1997). Journal of Social Issues. The O.J. Simpson Trial: Challenges to Science and Society.
For instance, the 1972 Furman V. Georgia case abolished the death penalty for four years on the grounds that capital punishment was extensive with racial inequalities (Latzer 21). Over twenty five years later, those inequalities are higher than ever. The statistics says that African Americans are twelve percent of the U.S. population, but are 43 percent of the prisoners on death row. Although blacks make up 50 percent of all murder victims, 83 percent of the victims in death penalty cases are white. Since 1976 only ten executions involved a white defendant who had killed a bl...
...on martin case developed into a case about race despite the fact that during the prosecution race was never a motive(f1of1)For the most part the media stays away from referencing certain races of subjects besides showing pictures. The media has a tendency to twist and turn facts and resultingly become very biased.