Essay on The Judicial Process and Batson Case

The criminal justice system of America is deeply scarred with racial bias. Crimes are being committed and, in turn, are resulting with innocent people doing hard-time. Thankfully, newfound methods of appealing court rulings are finding justice for these minorities; however, the results are as shocking as the crimes being committed. When it was found that the majority of successful appeals were of minorities, the true defects of the system was apparent. The minority community is being critically judged for things they’re not doing.

In modern-day America the issue of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is controversial because there is substantial evidence confirming both individual and systemic biases. While there is reason to believe that there are discriminatory elements at every step of the judicial process, this treatment will investigate and attempt to elucidate such elements in two of the most critical judicial junctures, criminal apprehension and prosecution.

The issue at hand is whether the use of peremptory challenges to remove a potential juror form the jury pool based on the race violates the equal protection

Few in this country would argue with the fact that the United States criminal justice system possesses discrepancies which adversely affect Blacks in this country. Numerous studies and articles have been composed on the many facets in which discrimination, or at least disparity, is obvious. Even whites are forced to admit that statistics indicate that the Black community is disproportionately affected by the American legal system. Controversy arises when the issue of possible causes of, and also solutions to, these variations are discussed. It’s not just black versus white, it is white versus white, and white versus oriental, whatever the case may be, and it is not justice. If we see patterns then the judges should have the authority to say something. Jury nullifications cannot be overturned regardless of the cause. Exclusionary rule, according to CULS (2010) – Prevents the government from using most evidence gathered in violation of U.S. Constitution; like unreasonable search and seizure (Fourth Amendment).

You brought up how jurors are more likely to find a defendant guilty when the defendant is a different race, and the victim is the same race as the juror, which creates a problem if race is being viewed as a primary factor in the case. Unfortunately, as we know, racial disparities are apparent throughout every phase of our justice system. For example, black individuals are three times as likely to have their cars searched by the police compared to their white counterparts, in addition to being more likely to be pulled over (Racial disparities, 2014). On a larger scale, racial disparities in sentencing decisions are also imposed much more harshly for black individuals than white individuals in the United States. Furthermore, black males in the

We find that the case does in fact violate the precedent Batson v. Kentucky which violated the 14th amendment protection clause. First the prosecutor had the intention to get rid of all juries that were black. One of the reasons is that in the prosecutor’s notes, the prosecutor have highlighted and marked with a “B” for anyone who was black. In addition the prosecutor had placed all of the black jurors on the “Definite NOs” list. On the list that the prosecutor had no white jurors were on the list. Finally the prosecutor had the names of the black jurors circled on his list. All of this violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment where everyone should be treated equally regardless of their

The current study integrates past research and theory on racial bias in juror decision-making, positing that White mock jurors will demonstrate higher rates of false alarms in cases involving African American suspects. In other words, White jurors will be biased towards believing that African American suspects are guilty, thus assuming the stereotype of minority criminality. This hypothesis was formed based on prior research indicating the presence of White juror biases against Black defendants, and in-group/out-group racial biases (Sommers & Ellsworth,

To begin with, Bias in the court room can be many things: Race, Religion, Sex, etc. For example, In the case: Rodriguez v. Colorado Miguel Angel Peña Rodriguez was charged with sexual assault. According to the article, "Racial bias in the jury room..." the Colorado Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Miguel Angel Peña Rodriguez despite evidence that a juror said, "I think he did it because he's Mexican, and Mexican men take whatever they want." Mr. Rodriguez was accused of making sexual advances toward two teenage girls in the bathroom of a horse-racing track. The juror, H.C., was a former law enforcement officer who also said during deliberations that "where he used to patrol, nine times out of 10 Mexican men were guilty of being aggressive

Paul Butler is an African American lawyer whom practiced as a prosecutor (2) specializing in white collar criminal defense and civil litigation (3). He graduated with honors from both Yale University and Harvard Law School (4). Butler is currently a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center (5). Paul Butler is now considered a scholar in racial law (6). This particular article enters into this subject. The question that the article Racially Based Jury Nullification: Black Power in the Criminal Justice system by Paul Butler is the role of race in black jurors’ decisions to acquit defendants in criminal cases, and what the role should be (1). Butler believes that this question is an important question to answer due to the

I still believe that the exclusion of a jury on the grounds of race, gender and sexual orientation violates your right to a fair trial. No matter what everyone should always have the right to a fair trial. You cannot determine whether someone is or is not suitable to be on a jury pool for certain factors such as race and

Jurors contribute much to racism dealing in rape and other cases. A study for The Journal of Social Psychology was conducted about Juror racism in Rape Trials by Patricia Herbert Landwehr et al., from the Department of Psychology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In Racism in Rape Trials, Landwehr et al. concluded, similar to a previous study done by R.W. Hymes et al., Acquaintance Rape, that juror racial bias is more likely to cause a defendant to be convicted if said defendant's race differed from that of their alleged victim. Many issues come alone with the racism and racial bias continuing in Jurors and Judges. Can they be settled? The Sentencing project developed Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System A Manual for Practitioners and Policymakers. In this manual members of the Project developed multiple ways to reduce Racial Disparity including ‘Encouraging Diversity in the Legal Profession’. Another way to reduce racial bias in the Criminal Justice System would be to hold Blind Trials. For a Blind Trial to be effective the Jury and Judge would only be told the crime the defendant has been accused of, the age, and gender of the defendant and prosecutor. They would also be told any priors the defendant may hold and any time they may have done. The Juror and Judge will also be able to hear the statements from both sides. They will not be

Additionally, contemporary cases of race segregation including affirmations that are not "immediate" and subject to differing understandings in light of history, tone, an intonation of voice, and land conditions, for instance, must be analyzed in the setting. Members of the jury ought to be given the chance to contextualize certainties, and judges ought not to dispose of this jury work

Present research proposal aims to build up on prior research on claims of race-based bias found in juries, in actual cases and experiments and further investigate some claims using self-reported and structured questionnaires, before and after mock trials based controlled experiment model. While biases have been contained as far as possible, further research and replication maybe need to fill in the loopholes left out due to the vast scope of literature we could not focus on.

Racial bias for the justification of this essay by definition "are forms of implicit bias, which refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect an individuals understanding, actions, and decision in an unconscious manner" and that, that is what the black teenage boy faces every time he walks into a convenience store, that is what the Muslim girl faces every time she steps foot onto a school bus to receive an education, and that is what not only the people that surround us, but the people in America and the people in the criminal justice system are victims of by the men and women who swore to protect and carry out the equal human rights of all. Racial bias does not just occur solely within the court system. It occurs from the black men who was racially profiled who "randomly" got pulled over, to jury selections, to the out of proportion prison systems and to the entire criminal justice system, who took the 14th Amendment to provide equal human rights to all, no matter what color, ethnicity, gender or race. That is what needs to change. During the Supreme Court Trial in 1986 of Baston v. Kentucky it was found that a judge and prosecutor performed voir dire examination of the jury. Then which resulted in certain juries being excused for cause. The Defense counsel found that "the removal of the black venire men violated petitioner 's rights under the Sixth and

Having a diverse bench is critical to having a successful criminal justice system. The United States court system follows a presumption of innocence, meaning those who enter a courtroom are presumed innocent until proven guilty. This presumption of innocence is not always found in the courtroom. Every courtroom actor, whether consciously or unconsciously, has a bias towards the defendant and may even presume guilt before the case begins. This is especially true when there is a white judge acting on cases involving a defendant who is a part of the minority. Judges who represent the minority are not only unbiased towards defendants of their own race, but they also bring new perspectives to the bench (Haire & Moyer, 2015). They present ideas, understandings, and