Kent Vs Us

590 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Criminal justice issue on juveniles tried as adults

Have you heard of Kent vs. United States? A 16-year-old African American boy by the name of Morris A. Kent Jr., was tried as an adult for assault charges of multiple home burglaries, robberies, and rapes. Police detained Morris and took him into court trial. In 1966, racism became a whole new meaning in the Superme Court, and this case is one of the key reasons why racism is still alive in the United States. Teenagers can be tried as adults after several convictions, but what you don’t know is that teenagers can be sentenced to life in prison after the crime of homicide. “Juvenile court waived its jurisdiction, which allowed Kent Jr. to be tried as an adult” (Fortas N.P.), and could be locked up in prison. One of the jury’s on trial proved Kent’s guiltiness, and was sentenced a wide range of 30-90 years in prison. Morris had been on probation since he was 14 years old. Kent was put on custody with his mother, but on September 2, 1961, somebody had broke into a women’s apartment, took her wallet, and raped her. The fingerprints matched up with Kent Jr.’s. Morris was taken to police headquarters, where officers had interrogated him (G.P.O. 1). He then admitted his involvement in office, which then led to his …show more content…

Although judges did not know the right amount of time for these brutal incidents, they knew Kent Jr. could be tried to life in prison. Kent’s family thought this was an outrageous amount of time one 16-year-old could be in prison for. Although it was harsh, Morris had 8 convictions of rape and robbery, which is a serious matter of law. Kent Jr. should not have tried as an adult for his convictions, even if they were that bad. The Supreme Court noted that the objectives are only to “provide measures of guidance and protection for teenagers and society” (Flickeflu N.P.). “There is no place in the system of law for a result of such hard punishment without ceremony” (Flickeflu

Show More
Related

  • Case Citation: Kentucky V. King 563 US

    720 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the Lexington, Kentucky a drug operation occurred at an apartment complex. Police officers of Lexington, Kentucky followed a suspected drug dealer into an apartment complex. The officers smelled marijuana outside the door of one of the apartments, as they knocked loudly the officers announced their presence. There were noises coming from the inside of the apartment; the officers believed that the noises were as the sound of destroying evidence. The officers stated that they were about to enter the apartment and kicked the apartment door in in order to save the save any evidence from being destroyed. Once the officer enters the apartment; there the respondent and others were found. The officers took the respondent and the other individuals that were in the apartment into custody. The King and the

    Read More

  • Florida versus Jardines

    592 Words  | 2 Pages

    Facts: On November 2006 the Miami-Dade police department received an anonymous tip that the home of Joelis Jardines was been used to grow marihuana. On December 2006 two detectives along with a trained drug sniffing dog approached Jardines home. At the front door the dog signaled for drugs, as well as the detective who smelled the marihuana coming from inside. Detectives then wrote an affidavit and obtained a search warrant that confirmed the growth of marihuana in Jardine’s home. Jardines was then charged for drug trafficking. Jardines then tried to suppress all evidence and say that in theory during the drug sniffing dog was an illegal search under the 4th amendment. The trial courts then ruled to suppress all evidence, the state appellate courts then appealed and reversed, the standing concluding that there was no illegal search and the dog’s presence did not require a warrant. The Florida supreme court then reverse the appellate court’s decision and concluded that a dog sniffing a home for investigativ...

    Read More

  • No Matter How Loud I Shout Summary

    651 Words  | 2 Pages

    Within the last five years, violent offenses by children have increased 68 percent, crimes such as: murder, rape, assault, and robbery. Honestly, with these figures, it is not surprising at all that the Juveniles Courts focus less on the children in danger, and focus more on dangerous children. This in fact is most likely the underlying reasoning behind juveniles being tried as adults by imposing harsher and stiffer sentences. However, these policies fail to recognize the developmental differences between young people and

    Read More

  • Man Gave Parole In A Flagstaff Hotel Analysis

    676 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article titled ”Man Denied Parole in a Flagstaff Hotel” the article follows the case of then teenager Jacob Wideman murdering his bunkmate Eric Kane while he slept in his bed at a summer camp hotel in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1986. Jacob was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years, the article was written in 2011the year of his first parole hearing. The issue for the readers to decipher in the article is if they believe Jacob who has served the past 25 years in prison should be granted parole and be released from prison. The article gives up to date insight from the parents of both of boys, Jacob who committed the murder, and Eric the victim all leading up to Jacob’s parole hearing. In this paper I will highlight key points from the article while answering key questions to give a better understanding of the trial for myself and for the readers.

    Read More

  • Roper V Simmons Case Study

    1474 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the United States Supreme Court case of Roper v. Simmons of 2005 the Supreme Court ruled in a five to four ruling that the death sentence for minors was considered “cruel and unusual punishment,” as stated by the Eighth Amendment, according to the Oyez Project online database. Christopher Simmons, the plaintiff, was only seventeen at the time of his conviction of murder. With the Roper v Simmons, 2005 Supreme Court ruling against applying the death penalty to minors, this also turned over a previous 1989 ruling of Stanford v. Kentucky that stated the death penalty was permissible for those over the age of sixteen who had committed a capital offense. The Roper v. Simmons is one of those landmark Supreme Court cases that impacted, and changed Simmons had become a landmark case, it quickly brought it into the sight of the public, as well as the legislative branch. With growing public dissent against using foreign law in national cases, Congress even entertained the idea of reprimanding, or revoking, the Supreme Court’s ability to employ international references when it came to such instances (“Debate Over Foreign Law in Roper v. Simmons”).

    Read More

  • Criminal Justice In Just Mercy, By Bryan Stevenson

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    Capital punishment and bias in sentencing is among many issue minorities faced for many years in the better part of the nineteen hundreds. Now it continues to spill into the twenty first century due to the erroneous issues our criminal justice system has caused many people to suffer. In the book Just Mercy authored by Bryan Stevenson, Stevenson explains many cases of injustice. Stevenson goes into details of numerous cases of wrongfully accused people, thirteen and fourteen year olds being sentenced to death and sentences of life without parole for children. These issues Stevenson raises bring to question whether the death penalty is as viable as it should be. It brings to light the many issues our criminal justice system has today. There

    Read More

  • New England Vs. Chesapeake DBQ

    1310 Words  | 3 Pages

    While both the people of the New England region and of the Chesapeake region descended from the same English origin, by 1700 both regions had traveled in two diverse directions. Since both of these groups were beset with issues that were unique to their regions and due to their exposure to different circumstances, each was forced to rethink and reconstruct their societies. As a result, the differences in the motivation, geography, and government in the New England and Chesapeake regions caused great divergence in the development of each.

    Read More

  • Making A Murderer Essay

    639 Words  | 2 Pages

    The sentencing of underage criminals has remained a logistical and moral issue in the world for a very long time. The issue is brought to our perspective in the documentary Making a Murderer and the audio podcast Serial. When trying to overcome this issue, we ask ourselves, “When should juveniles receive life sentences?” or “Should young inmates be housed with adults?” or “Was the Supreme Court right to make it illegal to sentence a minor to death?”. There are multiple answers to these questions, and it’s necessary to either take a moral or logical approach to the problem.

    Read More

  • Bryan Stevenson Just Mercy

    1247 Words  | 3 Pages

    Stevenson and his team win the U.S. Supreme Court issues a categorical ban on a punishment other than the death penalty. “Life imprisonment without parole sentences imposed on children convicted of non-homicide crimes are cruel and unusual punishment and constitutionally impermissible”(295). Two years later, Stevenson wins a constitutional ban on mandatory life- without-parole sentences imposed on children convicted of the homicides. This announcement means there are thousands of prisoners have been related to legal relief and the chance of remission. As Stevenson states, “we’re supposed to sentence people fairly after fully considering their life circumstances, but instead we exploit the inability of the poor to get the legal assistance they need—all so we can kill them with less resistance” (287).

    Read More

  • Case Analysis: The Kissing Case

    706 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1959, two young African American boys, James Hanover (9) and David “Fuzzy” Simpson (7) were charged with molestation of a young white girl. The case is known as “The Kissing Case”, a case that has been much forgotten and to some even unheard. While there were many issues within the case, the main factor that changed the young boys’ lives forever was the simple fact that they were innocent. Some of the problems in this case are issues that are judicial system still seem unfit to get right in many cases.

    Read More

  • Life Without Parole for Juveniles

    958 Words  | 2 Pages

    Supreme Court ruling Graham v. Florida (2010) banned the use of life without parole for juveniles who committed non-homicide crimes, and Roper v. Simmons (2005) abolished the use of the death penalty for juvenile offenders. They both argued that these sentences violated the 8th Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. While these landmark cases made great strides for the rights of minors passing through the criminal justice system, they are just the first steps in creating a juvenile justice system that takes into consideration the vast differences between adolescents and adults. Using sociological (Butler, 2010) and legal (Harvard Law Review, 2010) documents, this essay will explicate why the next such step to be taken is entirely eliminating the use of the life without parole sentence for juveniles, regardless of the nature of the crime being charged.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Juvenile Justice System

    708 Words  | 2 Pages

    In today’s society, race and socioeconomic standing can determine the quality of treatment one receives while in the criminal justice system. Racial inequality and discrimination seems to be a permanent fixture within the criminal justice system, and the juvenile justice system is no exception when it comes to that form of injustice. As it is depicted in the PBS documentary, a teenage boy named Shawn from a white, upper-middle class family was first arrested after he stabbed his father multiple times while he was sleeping in a brutal murder attempt. Apart from the attempted murder charge, Shawn also racked up a charge of sexual assault against a fellow juvenile hall cellmate and also a drug charge when he got caught smoking pot while he was

    Read More

  • Diversion In The Juvenile Justice System

    811 Words  | 2 Pages

    Since the establishment of the first juvenile court in Chicago Illinois for over 100 years (Grisso, 199,813) ago, psychologists have continued to show a strong presence in juvenile proceedings and assist the juvenile justice system, as well as young people involved in it. a special court and the justice system for minors, partly in response to the recognition that adolescents, while clearly shows greater cognitive, emotional and behavioral capacities were established than their younger counterparts, do not have many of the skills that adults and relevant to the legal decision making and criminal responsibility (Otto and Borum, 2004) demonstrators. As a result, the juvenile court was to consider the criminal behavior of minors in context of development, with a greater emphasis on rehabilitation and decreased attention on the punishment (Zimring, 2000). Since the juvenile court was to focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment, the dramatic changes in the landscape of juvenile justice in 1966 and 1967, changing forever the denial of constitutional guarantees for minors. In its decisions in Kent v. United States (1966) and In re Gault (1967), the Supreme Court of the United States asked if the ideal rehabilitation of the

    Read More

  • Juvenile Justice Vs Criminal Justice

    891 Words  | 2 Pages

    Treating juveniles as a separate class in the criminal justice system did not exist until the late nineteenth century. Juveniles were grouped with all other violators of law within the nation’s courts. Along with rapid industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and social change that shocked our society came the necessary reforms to the criminal law system that saw things like probation, parole, undetermined sentences, and most importantly for the subject at hand, the juvenile court system. Recognizing the need for different type of solution, states began to adopt “open-ended, ...

    Read More

  • Tulsa Race Riots

    1683 Words  | 4 Pages

    “The trial was brought to a speedy conclusion. Not only did Judge Evans find the twelve guilty, fine them $100 each, and committed them to jail, but five people in the courtroom who had served as witnesses for the defense arrested. […] The police were then instructed to transfer the seventeen prisoners that night to the county jail”(30).

    Read More

More about Kent Vs Us

Open Document