Injustice in the Justice System

Justin Bieber has committed crimes but gotten away easy. He was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and while underage, but released from jail the following day--even though he was arrested on a $2,500 bond. Authorities found marijuana and Xanax in Bieber’s system, yet he still pleaded not guilty to all charges. Also, Bieber was charged for egging one of his neighbors in Los Angeles that resulted in $20,000 in damages for the owner. He paid the damages and ended up having probation. However, if the same person had been poor and were a minority, he or she would have received harsher punishment. This is because of the inherent inequalities in the American justice system. The major factors that contribute to these inequalities are money, race and the existing jury system.

One factor that plays an important role in the unfair treatment of the rich and the poor is money. The rich can buy the best lawyers whereas the poor rely on public defenders. For instance, the OJ Simpson case was famous because he was able to get away from murder charges. According to ‘Encyclopedia Britannica’ OJ Simpson, a former college and professional football star, was seen at the murder scene of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman on the night of June 12, 1994. They were stabbed to death and the police spotted Simpson they believe, attempting to escape from the scene of the crime. He was placed under arrest and taken into custody. On July 22, 1994, he pleaded not guilty and got away with possible murder because of his ‘Dream Team’ of lawyers. The ‘Dream Team’ of lawyers were, Robert Shapiro. Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian, F. Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz, Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, Gerald F. Uelmen, Robert Blasier, Carl Douglas, and Shawn Chapmen Holley. Shapiro was responsible for building the dream team and led the defense team through the trial. Cochran made it clear about the glove at the murder scene that it did not match with OJ Simpson’s hand. In his closing statement he says the famous phrase, “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit”. A close friend of Simpson, Kardashian took care of talking to the media and hide Simpson away in his house. Bailey handled many of the defense team’s press conferences. His cross-examination of LAPD investigator Mark Fuhrman made Fuhrman plead the Fifth in response to aspects of the case, including the planted evidence. In return, undermined Fuhrman’s credibility as a witness. Scheck and Neufeld assisted with undermining the prosecution’s DNA and forensic evidence. Unlike Simpson, most poor defendants do not have the money to buy good counsel. They have to rely on court-appointed public defenders to plead their case. These public defenders do not have the time or money to invest in their cases. For example, in the article, ‘This Innocent Man Pleaded Guilty to a Crime He Didn’t Commit’, the author, Antoine Goldet explains how poor defendants are forced to plead guilty even if they did not commit a crime. He gives an example of this by telling the story of how Rodney Roberts was sent to jail. In the summer of 1996, Rodney Roberts pleaded guilty to a kidnapping. Although he never met the victim nor conflict violence on her, he was forced to plead guilty and serve life in prison because his court-appointed defender advised him for his aggravated sexual assault to be dropped. He feared that if he did not plead guilty and set up for a trial then he would be sent away for decades. Poor defendants like these have to plea bargain because they cannot afford an attorney and have to get a court-appointed defender. Setting up a trial would be proven difficult without an attorney because the defendant would not have anything to back up their innocence. Invest factors such as an attorney, and money to pay for charges are unattainable for poor public defendants.

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Besides, money being one of the factors in the unfair treatment of poor and minority groups, race plays a big part in the criminal justice system. Both judges and the police are guilty of racially profiling. In the article, ‘Black Men Sentenced to More Time for Committing the Exact Same Crime as a White Person’, the author, Christopher Ingraham, points out that judges are less likely to revise sentences downward for black offenders than for white ones. In other words, judges reduce black offenders’ sentences by tiny amounts than they would do for white ones. According to a Sentencing Commission's report, the black and white sentencing disparities are now driven to having sentencing choices being made by judges at their discretion. And giving judges more discretion in sentencing allows more racial bias to seep into the criminal justice system. In addition to judges having a racial bias, police officers have a reputation for targeting the poor and other minority groups. This is because we often see blacks or other minority groups arrested more than those who are rich or white. In the article, ‘Black People More Likely to Be Stopped by Cops, Study Finds’, the author, Maggie Fox, points out that black people are more likely to pull over by police. Not saying that they are more likely to commit crimes but are more likely to be arrested once stopped. According to Fox, the study does not claim that police are unfairly targeting blacks, but recent popular online videos that show police brutality or wrong conviction towards blacks and other minority groups have shed some light on the issue. Social media platforms such as YouTube, have been showing policemen racial profiling Black people for potential violence. In the article, ‘Before Jordan Edwards, 8 Times Police Videos Showed the Real Story’, the author, Jennifer Emily, shows an example of police brutality by telling a story of a young boy named Jordan Edwards. In April 2017 in Balch Springs, a police officer fatally shot 15-year-old Jordan Edwards after he backed toward Balch Springs officers. A day later, after watching police body-camera footage, Chief Jonathan Haber said the car was driving the opposite direction of the cops when Officer Roy shot his rifle into the car and striking Jordan in the head. Officer Roy, now 38, was found guilty of murdering Jordan. Roy said, “That was solely on me. In a rush to get the information out, to be transparent… I missed a step”. The public would think it would be an accident, but this is just one example of police officers 'mistakenly' killing a black person. The justice system places too much faith in judges and the police to serve ‘justice’ that we believed to be fair and justified. Instead, we have a corrupted criminal justice system that allows racial discrimination to seep in.

Besides money and racial profiling, the jury system is another reason why poor and minority groups receive harsher punishment. The prosecutors' strikeout jurors of black defendants. In the article, ‘Why Is It So Easy for Prosecutors to Strike Black Jurors?’ the author, Gildad Edelman, points out that race plays a role in jury selection. Timothy Tyrone Foster, a black man sentenced death by an all-white jury in 1987, claims that the prosecution ‘deliberately’ eliminated all four black jurors. Even though the state argued they eliminated the jurors because of their race, questionnaires where jurors had been asked to identify their race and labeled three black jurors ‘B#1’, ‘B#2’, and ‘B#3’ and even identified which juror to keep if they had to pick a black juror. According to Edelman, jury selection occurs in two steps. First, the judge would dismiss potential jurors if they can’t be impartial. Secondly, after questioning the remaining jurors, the defense and the prosecution each have several ‘peremptory strikes’ to take out any jurors to their disliking until there are twelve left. That poses a problem for the justice system that forbids all racial discrimination. The court has underestimated the prosecutor's choice on how to pick and eliminate jurors.

Although the jury system can allow prosecutors to strike out black jurors, the jury system has proved to be the most successful way of dealing with justice. They lead racial bias out of the system, not judges. In the article, ‘Judges, Not Judges, Lead the Way Against Racial Bias in Our Justice System’, the author, Binna Kandola points in nearly 400,000 cases, the study found that juries were very consistent in their decision-making and disregarding the defendant of color. Kandola determines that there are two factors of having a successful jury system. One of the key features of the jury system is the instructions to focus on the evidence. It encourages people to be more accurate in their decisions which, in turn, reduces stereotyping. Another key feature of the jury system is the active debate, discussion, and challenge. Challenge and debate are some of the most effective ways of reducing racial bias, as we can reflect more on the data presented to us and use our proper judgment. Compared to judges and magistrates, they are do not usually engage in this type of constructive discussion. Their decisions are not thought off well constructively therefore, creating more bias decisions to occur. Although the jury system has notable stories of success, in the actual perspective, things are different. Theoretically good that the jury system can eliminate racial bias, there’s still the differences of what kind of jury the prosecutors have chosen. An all-white jury is more likely to spend less time deliberating, and more likely to convict a minority defendant than jurors of different racial backgrounds. According to Gildad Edelman, having jurors of color in cases with a black defendant and a white victim can lower the chances of a death sentence. This poses a problem to the justice system and disregards all the equality rights we have fought for.

Today, there seems to be a lot of disparities between those who are a minority or poor and those who are white or rich in receiving punishments. Minority groups and the poor are receiving harsher punishment than those who are rich or white because of money, race and how the jury system allows prosecutors to strike out black jurors. Money is an important reason because when people do not have enough money, they will not be able to get the best lawyers to defend them. They would have to rely on public defenders who can't help them. Racially profiling is another important reason because polices tend to stop and search black people and invoke violence. Lastly, the jury system is important because when the jury pool has a large white majority, they tend to give harsh punishments if the black defendant has harmed someone who is white. It is because of these reasons we see how unfair the criminal justice system is. It is clear today, that the criminal justice system is not what the Founding Fathers believed of having all men created equal. It means that everybody is the same, but not identical in appearance or skill. Overall, the criminal justice system is corrupted with no means of having a ‘fair trial’.

Bibliography

1. “Justin Bieber.” Crime Museum, Crime Museum, www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/celebrity-mugshots/justin-bieber/.
2. Fox, Maggie. “Black People More Likely to Be Stopped by Cops, Study Finds.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 26 July 2016, www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/black-people-more-likely-be-stopped-cops-study-finds-n616546.
3. Ingraham, Christopher. “Black Men Sentenced to More Time for Committing the Exact Same Crime as a White Person, Study Finds.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 29 Apr. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/16/black-men-sentenced-to-more-time-for-committing-the-exact-same-crime-as-a-white-person-study-finds/.
4. Emily, Jennifer. “Before Jordan Edwards, 8 Times Police Videos Showed the Real Story.” Dallas News, Dallas News, 24 Aug. 2019, www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2018/08/28/before-jordan-edwards-8-times-police-videos-showed-the-real-story/.
5. Kandola, Binna. “Juries, Not Judges, Lead the Way against Racial Bias in Our Justice System I Binna Kandola.” The Guardian, Guardian News, and Media, 15 Sept. 2017, www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2017/sep/15/racial-bias-criminal-justice-system-lammy-review-magistrates-courts-jury.
6. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “O.J. Simpson Trial.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 9 July 2019, www.britannica.com/event/O-J-Simpson-trial.
7. Edelman, Gilad. “Why Is It So Easy for Prosecutors to Strike Black Jurors?” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 June 2017, www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-is-it-so-easy-for-prosecutors-to-strike-black-jurors.