Analysis Paper

Criminal Judiciary

Your Name (First M. Last)

School or Institution Name (University at Place or Town, State)

The judicial system in the United States of America is balanced and should remain unchanged.

Either “Guilty” or “Not Guilty”, this is all where it begins from and probably ends at in America. As I do reserve my opinion on "Is judicial system in the United States of America fair and balanced and should remain unchanged." I am of the mind that the justice system in the US is not at all same for all. As per my opinion, it varies and it has flaws which need to be pointed and changed. This opinion of mine is based upon several different opinions and facts.

There are plentiful reasons which clearly depict that the judicial system of the US is not as perfect as it seems to be. The first and foremost reason for this opinion is the selection criteria of the jury. The people who constitute the "Jury Pool" of the judicial system are completely random people of the country. Their being random is not the issue, the major issue is biases. Most of the jury members have no authentic reason for getting such a privilege. Mostly jury does not include the people who are immigrant, this clearly depicts how biased the system is. This is one of the main reasons why most of the minorities are still not getting equal rights. Along with all this, most of the time the decisions of the jury does include racial biases and even ignoring minority citizens ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"HB4MR4zM","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Is the U.S. Legal System Fair to Most People? - Quora n.d.)","plainCitation":"(Is the U.S. Legal System Fair to Most People? - Quora n.d.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":154,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/6hWtnKoy/items/ZIWYX2H3"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/6hWtnKoy/items/ZIWYX2H3"],"itemData":{"id":154,"type":"webpage","title":"Is the U.S. legal system fair to most people? - Quora","URL":"https://www.quora.com/Is-the-U-S-legal-system-fair-to-most-people","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",4,14]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Is the U.S. Legal System Fair to Most People? - Quora n.d.). Minorities have issues with the judicial system as most of them do not even qualify to be summoned. Even the jury selection does show racism at times. The idea of "key men" clearly states how racism and biases prevails in the judiciary ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"wv0H7ZPF","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Kaufman 1967)","plainCitation":"(Kaufman 1967)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":160,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/6hWtnKoy/items/S32P6B75"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/6hWtnKoy/items/S32P6B75"],"itemData":{"id":160,"type":"article-journal","title":"A Fair Jury - The Essence of Justice","container-title":"Judicature","page":"88","volume":"51","journalAbbreviation":"Judicature","author":[{"family":"Kaufman","given":"Irving R."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1967"]],"season":"1968"}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Kaufman 1967).

Another problem with the juror selection is authenticity. No valid and authentic investigation is done while their selection and their words are taken as evidence. Any biased juror can easily serve his case as there is no check and balance upon him. It is totally upon the juror if he wants to plead on the case or not.

Not mere the selection of jurors but even the punishments are given to the guilty. The legal system is filled with racial and economic biases. There are several different cases in which different punishments were given for the same crime and even people were announced "Not Guilty" for the same crime. This is how biased the judicial system is. Judges reserve all the rights for decisions and they do use it in their own favor when they are biased.

Apart from the judges, the police is even worse. For the investigation, they use every possible way to ridicule a person. From torturing him physically to insulting him naked, they have all the rights. And it is possible that after bearing all this, the person is proved innocent. This is how the self-respect of people is brutally ridiculed. Mostly, the people of color are at threat of being victims of this situation. There are even many cases where two different police officers handle the same case differently and this states the height of hypocrisy.

It is quite evident from facts and figures that most of the people who are being affected by this system of the judiciary are the people of color, either brown or black. Many people lose their identity just because of their color and are treated with biases even in the judicial system. Racism can never ever be eliminated from this system as no measures are being taken for its elimination.

Not merely racism on the basis of color is affecting the system, but racism on the base of social status is another factor. If you are white and you have enough money to afford a lawyer, you can easily win the case, no matter whatever the crime you are accused of and if you are brown or black and belong to a middle or lower-class social status, you can never be proved innocent against any white. If you are being provided with a lawyer from the government, the lawyer maybe is just the student graduated from school and if the lawyer is of great name, he might be busy with several different cases and you would not be lucky enough to have his proper attention for your case. This is how useless the facilities of government are for the poor. If you are rich, you can easily get bail and even probation for your desired time but if you are poor and you do not have enough money, you are destined to stay in jail forever and wait until your date comes up. This is exactly how it works.

Several surveys and researches to prove that the decisions taken in the courts of the US are on the basis of gender and race biases. The evaluation basis are biased ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"kQVGkqZ4","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Gill, Lazos, and Waters 2011)","plainCitation":"(Gill, Lazos, and Waters 2011)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":162,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/6hWtnKoy/items/CQ8VXVCT"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/6hWtnKoy/items/CQ8VXVCT"],"itemData":{"id":162,"type":"article-journal","title":"Are Judicial Performance Evaluations Fair to Women and Minorities? A Cautionary Tale from Clark County, Nevada","container-title":"Law & Society Review","page":"731-759","volume":"45","issue":"3","source":"Wiley Online Library","abstract":"Because voters rely on judicial performance evaluations when casting their ballots, policymakers should work diligently to compile valid, reliable, and unbiased information about our sitting judges. Although some claim that judicial performance evaluations are fair, the systematic research needed to establish such a proposition has not been done. By the use of attorney judicial performance survey data from Clark County, Nevada, this analysis shows that objective measures of judicial performance cannot explain away differences in scores based on race and sex. Minority judges and female judges score consistently and significantly lower than do their white and male counterparts, all other things being equal. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that judicial performance evaluation surveys may carry with them unexamined and unconscious gender/race biases. Future research must compare judicial performance evaluation structure, content, and execution across states in order to identify those evaluation mechanisms least susceptible to unconscious gender and race bias.","DOI":"10.1111/j.1540-5893.2011.00449.x","ISSN":"1540-5893","shortTitle":"Are Judicial Performance Evaluations Fair to Women and Minorities?","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Gill","given":"Rebecca D."},{"family":"Lazos","given":"Sylvia R."},{"family":"Waters","given":"Mallory M."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2011"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Gill, Lazos, and Waters 2011).

This stance can be proved by the example of a school teacher who raped six high school students. There was enough evidence against her but she was pleaded not guilty and was even offered a plea deal of 10 years of probation. Whereas, another offender was plead guilty to have sex with a teenager and was sentenced to three-year prison.

I think this example is enough to state and prove my stance on the judicial system of the US as unfair.

References

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Gill, Rebecca D., Sylvia R. Lazos, and Mallory M. Waters 2011Are Judicial Performance Evaluations Fair to Women and Minorities? A Cautionary Tale from Clark County, Nevada. Law & Society Review 45(3): 731–759.

Is the U.S. Legal System Fair to Most People? - Quora N.d. https://www.quora.com/Is-the-U-S-legal-system-fair-to-most-people, accessed April 14, 2019.

Kaufman, Irving R. 1967A Fair Jury - The Essence of Justice. Judicature 51: 88.