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Us justice system fair and equitable
Injustice in the legal system
Fair in the legal system essay
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Michael Huemer makes an argument that claims that “it is morally wrong for lawyers to pursue legal outcomes that they themselves know to be unjust”. This argument goes outside the idea that lawyers can or should help out their guilty client get free, with, of course inside the boundaries of the legal system. So, the gist of Michael Huemer’s argument is basically: it is wrong for an attorney to knowingly aid their guilty client go free. When you think about it, Michael Huemer’s argument has a point. Usually, if an attorney knows that his and/or her client is guilty of whatever crime they had committed, it is should be seen as morally wrong for that attorney to seek out an outcome where his guilty client goes unpunished. In some way, I think …show more content…
The only other alternative to this argument Michael Huemer gives is that of severe over punishment. So here is my thought on this: is there some sort of loop hole where the attorney (knowing his client is guilty) can use to his advantage? Let us say a random attorney knows for a fact that the their client who is accused is actually guilty, but to ensure a conviction the evidence. It makes sense that the lawyer would seek out an acquittal, by showing that tampering with evidence should not be tolerated and allowed. It is shown that the integrity of the legal system is more important than the outcome of the case itself, even if the lawyer themselves do not believe in the legal system. The solution is that the lawyer ensure a conviction for the accused criminal. The problem with that notion is that criminals have the potential to reoffend the law. There is also the potential of failing to follow legal procedure. Lawyers should not applaud the government for messing up legal procedure, in doing so can potentially violates peoples rights. Michael Huemer is more focused with unjust advocacy. If you ask me, the act to ensure the integrity of the legal system is just
The aspect of wrongful conviction is established within law to protect the innocent from being abused by the law. Nevertheless, the real issue of concern is the fact of whether wrongful conviction actually helps those who cannot help themselves. With that said, another important underlying factor is whether the criminal justice system has restrictions set up to help those from being innocently convicted and those who have been convicted and later was found to be innocent. By looking at the case of Guy Paul Morin, one will see how the police, courts, and criminal justice system failed in aiding the innocent and bringing justice in society, as well as showing that the system has failed in helping its people, and what must be done to aid those who have been wrongfully convicted.
Plea bargaining precludes justice from being achieved, where the consent to less severe sentences are given in favour of time and money. The case of R v Rogerson and McNamara, demonstrates the advantages of hiring highly trained legal personnel, which inevitably contributed to their lesser sentence. Thus, making it more difficult for offenders to be convicted.
When examining criminal justice systems it is important to note two important criminal justice models, the due process model and the crime control models. Most governments function based on several aspects from each criminal justice model; these crime models were initially introduced by Herbert Packer in 1968 (Cole, Smith, & DeJong, 2014). The due process model in the criminal justice system reflects the formal decision making process and highlights the importance of ensuring the criminal justice system works upon reliable knowledge (Cole, Smith, & DeJong, 2014). The crime control model is based on efficiency and ensuring crime is repressed as much as possible; this model promotes bargaining and often encourages defendants making deals with
The job of a criminal lawyer is quite difficult. Whether on the defense or the prosecution, you must work diligently and swiftly in order to persuade the jury. Some lawyers play dirty and try to get their client off of the hook even though they are guilty without a doubt. Even though the evidence is all there, the prosecution sometimes just can’t get the one last piece of the puzzle to make the case stick and lock the criminal up. Such is the case Orenthal James Simpson.
The National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals set a limit that each criminal defense attorney can take 150 felony cases per year, but “caseloads of 500, 600, 800, or more are common” (“Five Problems”). With that, criminal defense attorneys are forced to triage or reject cases, leaving potential clients to go to court without representation. If the defendant does have a public attorney, their defense is unprepared and vulnerable to make mistakes when working out a reasonable sentence. In one of his cases, Jones and his client accepted a deal with the prosecution for a three year sentence for stealing locks. Upon further investigation, the prosecution discovered that they made a mistake in calculating the minimum sentence – Jones’s client should have only served “366 days,” but it was already too late (Eckholm).
This problem affects everyone, but only benefits four types of people; the judges, the lawyers, the clients paying thousands more to the lawyers to win their case, and the police. Judges today are not playing fair, and they are accepting bribes from equally corrupt lawyers that are desperate to win a case and improve their case winnings over their losses. The lawyers are asking for more money from the clients so that they can secretly hand over cash to the lawyers and ask for “favors” in the courtroom. With all of this injustice, comes fear implanted in the client, who is then willing to spend more on a lawyer to guarantee their success in a case; “fear and injustice equals more money for lawyers and judges”(Sachs).
The governance of our present day public and social order co-exist within the present day individual. Attempts to recognize the essentiality of equality in hopes of achieving an imaginable notion of structure and order, has led evidence based practitioners such as Herbert Packer to approach crime and the criminal justice system through due process and crime control. A system where packer believed in which ones rights are not to be infringed defrauded or abused was to be considered to be the ideal for procedural fairness. “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” Thomas Jefferson pg 9 cjt To convict an individual because proper consideration was not taken will stir up social unrest rather then it’s initial intent, when he or she who has committed the crime is not punished for their doings can cause for a repetition and even collaboration with other’s for a similar or greater crime.
Prosecutors and cops are also claimed to not want justice, if justice means setting a man free if there is not enough legal evidence to convict him, but rather believe that justice has prevailed when "the government wins its point" (16). What both teams in the adversary system are looking for is not to get justice, but rather to win. Judges are also said to be following their own agendas, by allowing certain illegally obtained information into the court or cheating the system in order to not cause a "traffic jam." Dershowitz elaborates by stating that this desire for wins is why plea bargaining, which he sees as "destructive," is so widespread; it allows for both teams to get a win. I agree with Dershowitz because scorecards are important to not only attorneys, but also clients who need some sort of proof to corroborate the competence and abilities of their lawyer. People seek to win, which is whey defense attorneys seeks technicalities to keep out certain information because they know that such evidence can affect the verdict. A myth we have uncovered in class is that "the search for truth is secondary to the protection of Individual Rights." If justice was the main goal of the criminal justice system, the search for the truth would be a priority and the jury would be asked to reach a verdict of "guilty" or "innocent" and not "guilty" or "not
The Criminal Justice system was established to achieve justice. Incarceration and rehabilitation are two operations our government practices to achieve justice over criminal behavior. Incarceration is the punishment for infraction of the law and in result being confined in prison. It is more popular than rehabilitation because it associates with a desire for retribution. However, retribution is different than punishment. Rehabilitation, on the other hand is the act of restoring the destruction caused by a crime rather than simply punishing offenders. This may be the least popular out of the two and seen as “soft on crime” however it is the only way to heal ruptured communities and obtain justice instead of punishing and dispatching criminals
It seems as if much of society believes criminals are playing a game; rolling the dice to see what they can get away-with cat and mouse. It may appear to many, arrest and prosecution are somewhat random and arbitrary. Unfortunately, the general views on the criminal justice system seem sour. In particular, within the court system, these views are based on the idea defendants of means can and do beat charges with the ‘best defense money can buy’, while poorer defendants plead to charges and serve their sentences. Repeated exonerations using DNA evidence, highly publicized incidents involving police shootings, with unindicted officers have done little to discourage these
people in these 21st century society wonder, “When is Justice to be done?” For district attorneys,
The book Acquittal by Richard Gabriel states, “juries are the best judges in the system. They are not elected, they don't have the high-powered microscope of appellate review or the stern, disapproving-schoolmarm precedent looking over their shoulder, and they have no interest in the outcome of the case.” For this reason, we can come to the conclusion that the use of juries in a trial is the best for all involved in the legal system. While juries, “are the best judges in the system”, lawyers, jury consultants, and jury scientists are the reasons they are viewed this way. It is their job to make sure that not only their client, but everyone has a fair and unbiased trial.Making sure that “the best judges in the system” are fair and unbiased takes a lot of planning, research, and effort. You must research the jurors, understand how they think, what their morals are, and how they would view this case. “It is a constructed reality, cobbled together by shifting memories of witnesses, attorney arguments, legal instructions, personal experiences, and beliefs of jurors.”(Gabriel
The jury knows what they know, however, it’s the lawyer’s job to use the correct visual evidence to make the story complete and help them form their own opinion. In the Susan Wright murder trial, a lot of visual evidence was put forth to convict her of conducting murder. For example, according to a CNN article entitled,” Blue-eyed butcher sentenced to 20 years,” “A medical examiner testified he was able to count 193 wounds on the body, with the actual number of stab wounds well in excess of that” (Jakobsson, 2010, para. 6.) The adage of the adage.
The statement "It is better that 10 guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" summarises and highlights the mistakes and injustices in the criminal justice system. In a just society, the innocent would never be charged, nor convicted, and the guilty would always be caught and punished. Unfortunately, it seems this would be impossible to achieve due to the society in which we live. Therefore, miscarriages of justice occur in the criminal justice system more frequently than is publicised or known to the public at large. They are routine and would have to be considered as a serious problem in our society. The law is what most people respect and abide by, if society cannot trust the law that governs them, then there will be serious consequences including the possible breakdown of that society. In order to have a fair and just society, miscarriages of justice must not only become exceptional but ideally cease to occur altogether.
...rounding individual offender needs and courtroom management and organizational concerns. Although courtroom actor reliance on different focal concerns is theorized to be uniform across jurisdictions, the relative emphasis and subjective interpretation of these considerations is likely to vary across court communities (Ulmer and Johnson, 2004). This is because "the meaning, relative emphasis and priority, and situational interpretations of them is embedded in local court community culture, organizational contexts, and politics" that vary across courts (Kramer and Ulmer, 2002: 903). From this perspective, judicial departures can be understood as the result of the complex interplay between formally rational guideline recommendations and substantively rational sentencing concerns, based on varying interpretations of different focal concerns across courtroom communities.