Justice in America: A Critical Examination

How do we receive justice in the U.S ? First what is Justice, is it “fairness or moral rightness. a scheme or system of law in which every person receives his/ her/its due from the system, including all rights, both natural and legal”(dictionary.com). But do we the people really get a fair trial? Do the people who work for the system and took an oath really care about moral rightness? “One problem is that attorneys, judges and legislators often get caught up more in procedure than in achieving justice for all”(dictionary.com). The justice system has consistently failed underprivileged/poor defendants. In the movie Twelve Angry Men there was a young boy put on trial and accused of murdering his father, his fate was death if pronounced

Most public defenders have very busy schedules and maybe over 50 cases to deal with so the defendant is not priority really. According to The Bronx Defenders “A state law limited the number of caseloads New York City public defenders could take on. 400 misdemeanors or 150 felonies a year. James told The Indypendent that when the law was passed, each LAS attorney averaged 632 cases a year (Ibarra)”. What this means is that the lawyer you were appointed doesn 't really have time to break down your case and try to get you off but maybe get you a good plea deal. In the movie Twelve Angry Men juror number 8 wasn 't completely sure if the boy did it or not so he voted not guilty. The two witnesses that was present to the crime had strong statements. As a lawyer your job is to discredit the witness but do to the public defendants lack of skill he let the jury hear the testimonials of the witnesses and put his client 's life in the jury 's hands. Ultimately juror number eight did the lawyers job for the kid and got him off. All in all most public defenders don’t really go deep into the case to see if their clients can win due to their overload of cases. The court appoints a lot of cases to public defenders, and ultimately overwhelms the lawyer and they fail to do their job correctly which puts a lot of underprivileged/poor or even innocent people in

Do to common knowledge most black and hispanic people are unable to afford their own lawyer. Which is why one in three black men will go to prison and one and six latino men. “So does the law protect us from racial discrimination or does hurt us for our race ? The undebatable and undeniable answer to the basic question of equal access to justice and fairness in the criminal justice system to all American citizens is a resounding "No." A simple dance through recent history depicts, in the most lucent fashion, an unfortunate and quite lengthy landscape of unequaled access to justice and abject unfairness in the criminal justice system as it applies to a substantial segment of the American population. However, there are many examples of justifiable equity in judicial discretion, or as some would call it, judicial balance. Our high court has, on occasion, actually reversed itself and halted a system of wrongdoing, e.g., Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v.Board of Education of Topeka (Durant III).” It is not a thought that it is a fact that race plays a major role in the courtroom from the prosecutor 's speech when on the stand to the jury 's decisions. In the movie Twelve Angry Men one of the jurors said we can 't trust them people saying the boy “isn 't like them because their white and the boy is latino”. It might not be said out loud but their are a lot of people serving the jury