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A Defense Of The Jury System Summary

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Do you think judges and juries are biased toward the white population? Three articles that cover this topic are “How the Judicial System Works” by Jacob Silverman, “A Defense of the Jury System” by Thomas M. Ross, and “Six Million Trayvons: How the George Zimmerman Mindset Has Rigged the Justice System Against Young Black Men” by Judd Legum. After reading all three articles, it is clear that America’s justice system is unfair, and juries are biased toward white people.

The first reason why the jury is corrupt is because juries can be biased. In Thomas M. Ross’s article, he states, “Juries are criticized for deciding on cases based on prejudice and emotion rather than relying on the evidence and the law.” Juries might have sympathy or hatred for one of the victims based on previous experiences that can be related to the circumstance. This type of discriminatory judgement can lead to unjust …show more content…

For example, in Jacob Silverman’s article the text reads, “If citizens didn’t give up some of their time to serve on juries, holding fair trials would be impossible. Jurors are randomly selected to ensure a cross-section of the population.” In other words, people will argue that since a jury is randomly selected, a trial will become fair. What many of these people don’t realize is that a sample of the jury might be slightly prejudice, which is generally directed towards black Americans, or might have previously heard some misleading info on the case. In this situation, part of the jury might hold some favoritism for the prosecutor or defense, and that is why a randomly selected jury is not always fair.

As you can see, there are many faults in the justice system. These faults, including one-sided juries, are what causes America’s justice system to be inequitable. So based on the information you just read, ask yourself once more, do you think that judges, juries, and the court process as a whole is bias towards white

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The biggest disparity that was found was when a death penalty case involved a white victim and a black defendant. After reviewing the death penalty cases, there was an indication that “twenty-two percent of cases received the death penalty when a black defendant and white victim were involved….compared to only three percent when there was a black victim and white defendant involved.” The study broke this data down further and looked at the percentages of when a prosecutor seeks the death penalty. The study found that prosecutors sought the death penalty in “seventy percent of cases that involved white victims and black defendants and only nineteen percent when the roles were reversed.”

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There are many racist caucasian people that serve in juries. They believe that African Americans should be in a position under them so they would do whatever they could to keep them down. During the Scottsboro Trials nine African American men were arrested for something that they did not do. They were accused of raping two white girls

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Juror three, for example, was dominated by emotions in regards to his relationship with his son. Juror three allows these emotions to play a role in his decision to vote guilty. If everyone had a past event that caused something like juror three, that boy would have been sentenced to death, without a second say. Juror three harbors an unconscious desire to vicariously punish his son by convicting the defendant, who is of similar age. These jurors had a preconceived notion of the boy and use that notion to harbor their decision to vote guilty.

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In 2010 there were 2,352 Jury Trials and 394 Bench Trials. (Document A, 289) Furthermore, 2,066 of the accused during Jury trials were convicted, while as only 257 were found guilty during the Bench Trials. (Document A, 289) This leads some people to think that the Jury was filled with people who jumped to conclusions based on how the accused looked or had an emotional connection with the victim. I believe that the percentage of convicted compared to the acquitted is higher in Jury Trials because they had twelve sets of eyes going over the same case and were able to talk through it with each other.

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Coker gives great evidence that supports racial injustice in the criminal justice system. She discusses on the Supreme Court’s rulings and accusations of racial preference in the system. This article is helpful because it supports my thesis on race playing a role on the system of criminal justice. Hurwitz, J., & Peffley, M. (1997). Public perceptions of race and crime: The role of racial stereotypes.

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This personal bias may be based experiences and might subconsciously affect the decision of the juror. Overall, jurors have a high chance of having bias and affecting the outcome of the case with this

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I believe that the federal justice system is just and unbiased. The federal justice system has guidelines and rules to keep them from using power improperly and targeting groups of people based on their race. This is talked about in article “Is the Criminal Justice System Racist”. There are statistics given pertaining to the prison sentences given to African Americans, prosecution during a felony trial, and crime/prison rates.

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As a result, capital juries tend to be whiter and more dominated by males than are juries in other cases. It has been suggested that as a result of this, capital juries are about 43% more likely to sentence a killer to die if his victim is white. Undeniably, capital juries show some racial disparities in their sentencing decisions. If juries in capital cases were not subject to death-qualification procedures, there is little reason to believe these racial disparities would survive. The solution, some might suggest, to minimize racial discrepancies in capital sentencing is to eliminate the ability of prosecutors to disqualify anyone with qualms about capital punishment from the jury pool.

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Is our justice system corrupted, racist or is it perfect? Did you know African Americans now constitute for nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population? This is probably the case because Blacks are incarcerated six times the rate of whites. African Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people. I believe race, ethnicity and gender disparities play a large role in how our system is executed.

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Definitely agree that racial and ethnic minorities have been treated unfairly by the criminal justice system. While repeating both color-blind and blinded by color multiple times, it has come to my attention that our criminal justice system is blinded by color. Examples of these actions are the stop and frisk, and the police brutality against the minorities, which automatically assumes the stereotypes of racial and ethnic minorities. In “The color of skin, is the color of crime” by Luis Rodriguez he states many stereotype about men.

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A preferred selection of jurors are the ones that do show to be sympathetic to the accused individual’s plight. This is favored because it might increase the the percentage of avoiding conviction. This motivation, however, provokes within the accused individual a fear that relates to the concern of society. This is where the voir dire comes into play by seeking elicits information from prospective jurors. According to Hendrix & Inciardi (2013), “Typically, challenges for cause allege that the prospective juror would be incapable of judging the accused fairly” (p. 244).

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There is a lot of room for concern when reflecting on the imbalances in the American Criminal Justice System. We can begin with the number of African American and Hispanic males in the justice system referring to arrest, pretrial release, convictions, sentencing and recidivism, the numbers just do not reflect the population. The American Bar Association reported that ten point one percent of minority judges make up the state supreme courts, intermediate appellate courts and trial courts of general jurisdiction. When reducing those numbers to reference specific minorities, five point nine percent are African American which represents the most significant portion of the minorities, Latino/as accounted for two point eight percent. When separated by gender females were significantly

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For years now there has been a lot of controversy involving the looming question: Is the criminal justice system racist? Racism is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one 's own race is superior. Ever since the Trayvon Martin case of 2012, the justice system has been in a complete downfall including all of the police brutality cases since then also. According to sources, 1 of every 4 African American males born this decade are expected to go to prison in their lifetime. Census Bureau reports that the U.S. is 13 percent percent black, 61 percent white, and 17 percent latino.

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Through my research I continuously asked myself; why are there more people of color incarcerated than whites? Is it because they commit more crimes? Or are parts of the criminal justice system flawed and discriminatory? Nonetheless, if the there is some kind of discrimination, does this explain poverty in African American and Hispanic communities? I found that, today, people of color are more likely to be incarcerated and sentenced disproportionally than their white counterparts.

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As an article posted in 2012 states “Decades of research shows the racial bias pervades death penalty cases” even if the person charged with the crime was innocent and there was evidence of information to prove that the jury would still neglect to acknowledge that and base their judgment on the color of the defendant’s skin. Another article says that “Blacks in California are sentenced to death at a rate five times higher than their proportion of the population” when it’s a black person being prosecuted they throw the death penalty around like it’s some joke like the person standing in front of them isn’t a person at all. The statistics show that “minority defendants with white victims are much more likely to be sentenced to death than others” if this is the case why aren’t whites more likely to be sentenced to death if the victims are black? That’s because whites believe they are superior to black like they have more meaning to the world than people of color but we are all human so why do whites get special privileges it’s not impartial.

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