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Summary Of The Timothy Foster Case

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In 1987 an African-American male, Timothy Foster, was convicted of murdering a Caucasian female in Georgia and was sentenced to death (Vogue 2016). The prisoner’s appeal process worked its way up to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that he was convicted because of racial prejudice (Vogue 2016). Notes obtained from the prosecutors of the case revealed that they did not select certain jurors because they were black and that the jury was all white (Vogue 2016). The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Timothy, which was in accordance with the already established anti-discrimination precedents set by the 14th amendment and the 1986 Supreme Court decision in Batson v. Kentucky (Vogue 2016). This case is important for several reasons. The case shows that there is in fact racial discrimination in the American Criminal Justice system and that the system itself has honestly admitted that it is flawed. It illustrates that the system still needs to be scrutinized when it comes to convicting people of color and that America still does not treat everyone equally as its laws claim. This decision will produce several more appeals by individuals who feel that they may have been convicted based upon their skin color and may lead to several convictions …show more content…

While it is plausible that an African-American male was wrongfully discriminated against, one cannot accurately render a decision without knowing all the facts of the case. It seems that the jury was rigged by the prosecution and that anti-discrimination laws were violated. However, the story does not include any of the evidence used to convict Timothy of the murder. There could be DNA evidence, lack of an alibi, and eye witness testimony that specifically link him to the crime. This story may be the age old ploy of the media using attention grabbing headlines and stories that perpetuate the rampant stereotypes in U.S.

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1) On August 28, 1986, a woman named Queen Madge White was found dead in her home in Rome, Georgia. She was a 79-year-old widow and was found to be beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death. Her home had also been burglarized. Timothy Foster, an 18-year-old black male, confessed to the crime and officers recovered some of the stolen items from Foster’s home. The State subsequently indicted him for malice, murder, and burglary and the jury that was selected convicted him of capital murder and assigned the death penalty.

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In her book, The New Jim Crow, Alexander argues the discrimination of jury selections which is an unfair of treatment for people of color under the law (The Fourth Amendment). Moreover, she provides more information about the juries and juror race-based selection in the justice system. The statistical shows that there is approximately 30 percent of black man are automatically banned or rejected from the jury service and many cases all black jurors are eliminated with the irrational explanations, such as the physical appearance, clothing style, and even marital status (Alexander, 2012). She also reports the interesting case of the two black men who was convicted of second degree robbery in a Missouri court. In addition, she emphasizes that during

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Primary Annotated Bibliography McCleskey v Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987) McCleskey v Kemp is a Supreme Court case that highlighted racism in the death penalty process. The petitioner in the case provided a controversial statistical study that correlated racism in death penalty sentencings. The Supreme Court Justices were asked to answer the question of whether or not the statistical study provided could substantiate that the sentence in the case violated the petitioner’s eighth and fourteenth amendment rights. This case will be the main focus of my research paper.

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The author’s studies indicate that the criminal justice system choose majority of their targets and suspects predominantly by race. According to studies conducted by the U. S Department of Justice, the imprisonment rate by race per 100,000 residents over 3,000 black males were imprisoned in the year 2000 compared to white males imprisonment rate of less than 500. This shows that conviction of crime, robbery, murder, and other violence and drug related crimes has a clear discrepancy across racial groups.

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For example, African American make up more of the population of the jail system when it only account for a small portion of the population in the entire nation of America. The causes of such disparity may be included in different levels of criminal activity, law enforcement emphasis on particular communities, legislative policies, or decision making by criminal justice practitioners who exercise broad discretion in the justice process at one or more stages in the system (Schrantz, 2008). In this case one: Turner The court system is made to have a fair judgement between the accuser and victim. The district attorney who are representing the victim and the state who get a case and they decision if they want to bring charge against the accuser. They make choice if they think if they can win or not depending on the evidence that is presenting to them by police officer.

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Sentencing disparity within the American Judicial system is a problem that exists across the nation. According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, disparity means the markedly distinct in quality or character. Many times, disparity is used in conjunction with discrimination as if the two words mean the same, but they do not. Disparity will include a difference in treatment or outcome but is not based on an opinion, bias or prejudice.

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These conclusions are made jointly exploit the difference between legal and philosophical differences between the treatment, different effects, and in recognizing the impact of different, and sometimes does not make sense (eg Miller 1999: Chapter 5; 1991 Kennedy) positive. intentional acts of racial discrimination, now constitute a struggle now facing our society beyond the most important obstacle to its racist history (98 Kennedy 1991). I propose in this section principle, the risk guilty man began to be stopped or searched his face should not rely on racial or ethnic groups. Many people oppose this principle in this society there are a number of obligations (than those who respect the basic legal rights, etc.) to those who knowingly violate

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