Bias In The Court System

Court System Controversy

Although there is a standard for courtrooms and how they should function it is, nevertheless, unrealistic and unable to be upheld due to bias, prejudice- either conscious or subconscious, and stereotyping.

Initially, bias is using personal experiences to hold strong emotions toward a variety of groups of people. Bias can affect the court system in countless ways. For example, an individual may connect to the person on trial by race, gender, ethnicity or commonality between the defendant and someone from their personal life. May also occur with events and situations being discussed on trial. Author Veronica Roth stated that “no matter how smart, people usually see what they 're already looking for, that 's all”, and this applies to the justice system in the sense that looking past the biases is and always will be difficult because one tends to ignore evidences because of overwhelming emotions from bias (Roth). It is ideal to have impartial jurors whom will seek to be fair and will endeavor to correct potential bias in the courtroom in themselves, but it is not logical.

Secondly, conscious prejudice is strong emotion towards or against, in this case the defendant on

Finally, stereotypes are continually damaging society, but more so the justice system. Stereotypes allow the jurors to feel that using the hasty generalization fallacy is a proper argument, along with bandwagoning on the ideas of other simple minded men and women who categorize groups of individuals. This bias works like the rest; “if the emotion is consistent with the stereotypes … then those negative emotions are likely to exacerbate implicit biases”, causing an impartial jury and unfair ruling (Implicit Bias In a Courtroom). The common stereotypes, as random and wild as they may seem, can be mistaken as for logic and evidence against the defendant. The more common and widespread the stereotype, the more acceptable it may appear to not only jurors but to many in the