People would like to be able to believe that the statement “All men are created equal in our court system” is true, but sadly this statement is not true in many different cases. Our court system is prejudices against those who may be African American. Many cases that include African Americans discrimination are done. Some examples of these cases would be first, case is the Scottsboro Boys second, is the case of Emmet Till and Medgar Evers third, the Emmett Till case.
First case is the Scottsboro boys. On March 25, 1931 9 African American boys boarded a train along with 2 girls and a group of teenage boys who just happened to be Caucasian. A fight broke out among the 2 different groups of boys, and in the end the group of white boys got thrown off of the train. On March 31 all 9 boys had been accused of gang rape. All 9 boys were put on trial but the jurors decided who their lawyers were and they possibly gave them the worse ones that they could find. Clarence Norris and Charles Weems were the first 2 boys to go on trial, their lawyers just happened to be a Tennessee real estate with a drinking problem but no criminal law experience and a man 70 years old who is an Alabama attorney who hasn’t had a case in a couple of decades. 12 days after being arrested all of the boys besides one were sentenced to death. Just like it is in the book “To Kill a Mockingbird” a black boy was accused of raping a white girl. Back then a white person’s word was mainly the law and by far greater than a black person’s word. In the end it ends up being a white persons word over a black and the white person is going to win every single time. Not much has changed over the years with the racism. WWW.Ebscohost.com
Second is the case of Emmet...
... middle of paper ...
...osed to be biased in any form or way. The people need to do justice to Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin, Medgar Evers, and the Scottsboro Boys and not let this injustice court happen again.
In conclusion the statement “All Men are Created Equal in our Court System” would have to be false in most of the past cases. The people of this country need to change the ways of the court so the people can finally say that the statement “All Men are Created Equal in our Court System” is a true statement. The people need to do it for the justice of those in the past and those in the future. For the same reasons as first the case of the Scottsboro Boys, second the case of Emmett Till, and third the case of Trayvon Martin and Medgar Evers. For these reasons the statement “All Men are Created Equal in our Court System” is not true.
Works Cited
www.ebsco.com
www.naacp.org
While segregation of the races between Blacks and Whites, de facto race discrimination, had been widespread across the United States by the 1930s, nine African-American Scottsboro Boys whose names are Ozzie Powell, Eugene Williams, Charlie Weems, Willie Robeson, Olen Montgomery, Roy and Andy Wright, Clarence Norris and Heywood Paterson were accused of raping two young white women named Victoria Price and Ruby Bates in Alabama in 1931. Along with the dominant influences of the Scottsboro cases on American civil rights history, the landmark case has substantial impacts on the U.S. Constitution primarily in that U.S. Supreme Court ascertained a defendant’s right to effective counsel.
... Till, Evers, King and Martin all seem to be cases of stereotyping and racial profiling. These cases make it seem as if justice was not served and that the wrong verdict was rendered initially. That is the same situation with the Zimmerman vs. Martin case. . Hopefully justice will prevail, in time, just as in the cases cited and George Zimmerman will be placed behind bars for a long time; the place where he belongs. If history repeats itself, a wrong verdict will be overturned.
The hypocrisy and double standard that allowed whites to bring harm to blacks without fear of any repercussions had existed for years before the murder Tyson wrote about occurred in May of 1970 (Tyson 2004, 1). Lynching of black men was common place in the south as Billie Holiday sang her song “Strange Fruit” and the eyes of justice looked the other way. On the other side of the coin, justice was brought swiftly to those blacks who stepped out of line and brought harm to the white race. Take for instance Nate Turner, the slave who led a rebellion against whites. Even the Teel’s brought their own form of justice to Henry Marrow because he “said something” to one of their white wives (1).
Just Mercy’s Bryan Stevenson exposes some of these disparities woven around his presentation of the Walter McMillian case, and the overrepresentation of African-American men in our criminal justice system. His accounts of actors in the criminal justice system such as Judge Robert E. Lee and the D.A. Tom Chapman who refused to open up the case or provide support regardless of the overwhelmingly amount of inconsistencies found in the case. The fact that there were instances where policemen paid people off to testify falsely against McMillian others on death row significantly supports this perpetuation of racism. For many of the people of color featured in Stevenson’s book, the justice system was unfair to them wrongfully or excessively punishing them for crimes both violent and nonviolent compared to their white counterparts. Racism towards those of color has caused a “lack of concern and responsiveness by police, prosecutors, and victims’ services providers” and ultimately leads to the mass incarceration of this population (Stevenson, 2014, p. 141). Moreover the lack of diversity within the jury system and those in power plays into the already existing racism. African-American men are quickly becoming disenfranchised in our country through such racist biases leading to over 1/3 of this population “missing” from the overall American population because they are within the criminal justice
After his clients were found guilty of rape and sentenced to the death penalty for a third time, Sam Leibovitz noticed a disturbing trend in the courtroom. Out of the multitude of jurors used in each hearing, none of them were black. Every single one was a white southerner, and Leibovitz felt as though the jury was rigged in favor of the prosecution. This was exceedingly common in the South at this time, as many states excluded people of color from sitting on a jury. In Norris versus Alabama, Leibovitz voiced his concerns to the United States Supreme Court. This landmark case was unorthodox, as Leibovitz had the jury rolls from the cases brought up all the way from Alabama to be read by the justices. The preponderance of the names on the lists were those of whites, but there were a few names belonging to blacks at the bottom of some of the pages. These were all hastily scrawled, as if they were added recently. Leibovitz argued that they were written there merely to show that Alabama did not intentionally influence the jury against the boys, when they actually did. The Supreme Court voted for Leibovitz, and ruled that all people, no matter their skin color, should be able to vote on a jury. This verdict would be instrumental for later race-based proceedings in the future. During the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, many crucial cases were won because of empathetic, equal
The Scottsboro Trial and the trial of Tom Robinson are almost identical in the forms of bias shown and the accusers that were persecuted. The bias is obvious and is shown throughout both cases, which took place in the same time period. Common parallels are seen through the time period that both trials have taken place in and those who were persecuted and why they were persecuted in the first place. The thought of "All blacks were liars, and all blacks are wrongdoers," was a major part of all of these trails. A white person's word was automatically the truth when it was held up to the credibility of someone whom was black. Both trials were perfect examples of how the people of Alabama were above the law and could do whatever they wanted to the black people and get away with it. In both trials lynch mobs were formed to threaten the black people who were accused. Judge Hornton tried many times to move the case to a different place so that a fair trial could take place and not be interrupted by the racist people. Finally was granted to move the case even though the lynch mobs threatened to kill everyone who was involved in the case if it were to be moved. In this essay the bias and racism in both trials are going to be clarified and compared to each other.
In several cases and studies, there is a substantial amount of racial bias in the criminal justice system. In fact, the 1978 McClesky conviction has proven to support Baldus’s study in 1998. Warren McClesky, an African American male, was found guilty of killing a Georgia police officer. The legal team who represented McClesky exposed a study that showed how biased racial inequality is in the death penalty, but the court contended the argument because “disparities in sentencing are an inevitable part of our criminal justice system” (Touré). Furthermore, race has always been a serious matter in the Supreme Court and other government administrations, but they fail to recognize the
Even though the Declaration of Independence stated that "All men are created equal’’ this hasn’t always been the case. In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified and finally put an end to slavery. In addition, the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) strengthened the legal rights of newly freed slaves by stating that no state shall deprive anyone of either "due process of law" or of the "equal protection of the law." And finally, the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) further strengthened the legal rights of newly freed slaves by prohibiting states from denying anyone the right to vote due to race. Despite these Amendments, African Americans were still treated differently than whites in many parts of the country, especially in the South. In 1954 the Warren Court ruled that separate educational facilities for whites and blacks are unequal, and don’t follow the 14th amendment, which is the right of “equal protection under the law”. This resulted in the Brown v. Board of education case, which stated that publ...
Crimes in America can be vicious and brutal, often leading to long, draw out trials, but it is only fair if you charge the right man. The only way that it can be fair is if you go by the facts and not the appearance of the accused. Many trials in America have men of color pointed out to be criminals. Many crimes are committed for a reason but many people label it as unknown. People are racist especially against colored people, they believe that white men are innocent but that is not always true.
The criminal justice system is united under one basic law body, in which no racism is present. Personal beliefs and anecdotes prove nothing, the criminal justice system isn’t racist. Although it may seem African Americans are highly discriminated upon in the justice system, there is ample amounts of data to prove otherwise. The criminal justice system is united under one basic law body, in which no racism is present. The system is not to blame for the racial differences found in the United States criminal justice system. The racial issues found in the system are due to inner city isolation and common crime patterns involving drugs even if it may seem as if the system is racist.
To look closely at many of the mechanisms in American society is to observe the contradiction between constitutional equality and equality in practice. Several of these contradictions exist in the realm of racial equality. For example, Black s often get dealt an unfair hand in the criminal justice system. In The Real War on Crime, Steven Donziger explains,
Many Americans pretend that the days of racism are far behind; however it is clear that institutional racism still exists in this country. One way of viewing this institutional racism is looking at our nation’s prison system and how the incarceration rates are skewed towards African American men. The reasons for the incarceration rate disparity are argued and different between races, but history points out and starts to show the reason of why the disparity began. Families and children of the incarcerated are adversely affected due to the discrimination as well as the discrimination against African American students and their likelihood of going to prison compared to the white student. African American women are also affected by the discrimination in the incarceration rate. Many white Americans don’t see how racism affects incarceration rates, and that African Americans are more likely to face discrimination from the police as well as being falsely arrested.
Is our justice system fair to all? Although the answer to this question is an opinion, there are pieces of evidence and commentary to defend this argument. The process of the legal system itself is all an opinion because in the end, the only person whose judgments matter is the judge himself. Over time, the wrong people have been arrested for the wrong things. Living in the United States, a country where crimes are committed constantly; we count on this system to make the right decisions. It is important that each case is treated equally when carrying out justice to keep the United States a safe place, to form a nation with good education, and to teach people from judging right from wrong. However, sometimes rights are taken from the wrong people. Our legal system is creating a dangerous path for African Americans in our country because of its’ highest per capita incarceration rate, its’ favoritism towards those in power, and its failure to carry out justice to protect people from the dangerous acts of those who are defined as criminals.
When a person of color is being sentenced the unjustness of sentencing is blatantly shown such as in the article Race Sentencing and Testimony which stated, “ These scholars conclude that black male arrestees “face significantly more severe charges conditional on arrest offense and other observed characteristics” and attribute this primarily to prosecution charging decisions” (Mauer 4). This piece of writing explains that for no other reason than race do these people get convicted far more significantly than others who have the same charge but are white, which continues as far as giving a person of color the max sentence that they can have on a certain charge just for the color of their skin. The justice system has turned into the opposite of what it claims to be and continues to grow as a racist overseer, bashing down on those that they believe should be punished as harshly as possible simply for the color of their skin. The system has gone as deep as to making it so that even if a person has not committed a crime, but are being charged for it they can agree to a plea bargain, which makes it so even though the person did not do it the system is going to have them convicted of it anyway (Quigley 1). “As one young man told me ‘who wouldn’t rather do three years for a crime they didn’t commit than risk twenty-five years
“The biggest crime in the U.S. criminal justice system is that it is a race-based institution where African-Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people(Quigley).” In a study that was observed in Texas, the probably was higher for defendants that were black men to be convicted to death sentence than a white man, and death was more likely to be a conviction for white victims than black victims (Phillips). The the same study we see that, “The multivariate models indicate that the odds of seeking death are 43 percent lower on behalf of black victims compared to white victims. The transformation occurred because black victims were twice as likely to be killed in murders that had multiple victims. So the DA sought death less on behalf of black victims than white victims. The bar was set higher for seeking death on behalf of black victims.” As we can observe there is prejudice in the justice system, and is a factor we must examine closely in capital punishment trials. Although we may not realize it, we all have stereotypes filed somewhere in our memory and we all hold prejudices, we are blind to facts and we must learn to overcome that. There are numerous convictions in which criminals are convicted unjustly because of the DA’s bias. In the same we need to establish a system of checks and balances in the Judicial system, so that we can achieve the least