A Brief Note On Notorious Cases And Implications

I agree with the speaker that the criminal justice system in America treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent. I believe that in not only in American society but also around world, wealth has a major roll in the outcome of a situation. Money does what money does best, it buys. Unfortunately, money can buy you your freedom and a judge. With money people look up to you, but without money people look down on you.

In Reiman’s article, “The Rich Get Richer and the Poor get Prison”, Reiman explain the truth about our criminal justice system. The system we have in place are targeting small crime like drug dealer, assault, and robbery, overshadow crimes like laundered money which is a white collar crime. Prison continue to grow in crimes I listed already while the white crimes are no where to see. The increase of the police power has grow to bring small crime in prison, “ In recent years, we have quadrupled our prison population and, in cities such as New York, allowed the police new freedom to stop and search they suspect. Watching the youtube video Treasury David S. Cohen not having an opinion on HSBC 800 million dollars in drug traffickers in Mexico,cuba,

In the law a sentence is forms the final explicit act of judge rule process the sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime. We all have known this for years that this is that is how prison sentencing is done. Even though people should go away for the same crime, in reality prison sentencing is not fair because of people of different backgrounds, genders. and ethnicities face different sentences for the same crime. When it comes to society has high expectations for the criminal justice system. People expect a murderer, for example, to have the same sentence as another person. When a celebrity such as Bill Cosby gets put away for a rape he may go away for a shorter time than average Joe. The minimum sentencing for certain crimes, in this case, are longer than they should be. Why should people be sentenced to unlawful sentences and end up in jail until they are elderly and not a danger society?Unfair sentencing is a form of the unequal treatment often unexplained cause of why. We see a person go away for x amount of years and then someone else comes along and performs the same crime and gets less or longer than the other person.

Within the past decades, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of heinous crimes committed, causing some of the laws to significantly change. During the 1970s, some dramatic changes occurred when laws shifted from one extreme to another: rehabilitation to retribution. Such circumstances created an additional emphasis on the offense rather than on the offender. During the 1980s, the “get-tough-on-crime” era began; thus, radical changes in laws continued up until the late 1990s. Throughout the period of the Industrial Society, the United States had two bipolar types of punishment: harsh and lenient. Today, the main focus of the Criminal Justice System is about retribution and punishment.

According to Timothy Sandefur’s In Defense of Plea Bargaining article, “a plea bargain is a contract with the state. The defense agrees to plead guilty to a lesser crime and receive a lesser sentence, rather than go to trial on a more severe charge where he faces the possibility of a harsher sentence.” We are also told in The New York Times Article; Federal Law on Sentencing is Unjust, Judge Rules that “about 97 percent of federal criminal convictions nationwide were the result of plea bargains.”

“Inter-judge sentencing disparity, in the view of sentencing reformers, offends important rule of law principles, erodes respect for the courts, and undermines the deterrent effect of criminal law.” (Scott, 4) The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, were created by the United States Sentencing Commission, were put in place to minimize unwarranted disparity among the sentences handed out by judges. These same guidelines that helped to decrease disparity among the sentences that same offenders received or did not receive, were made advisory in a serious of decisions from 2005 to 2007. (Scott, 1) Giving too much power to judges, through the advisory of the federal sentencing guidelines, has since created a surge in inter-judge disparities. Unwarranted

Prosecutors operate without accountability and fail to punish high-level dealers and this does not eliminate sentencing disparities. Furthermore, mandatory sentences are responsible for sending many women and people of color to prison. Also, it was thought that harsher, mandatory sentences would serve as a greater deterrent, making it less likely that offenders would re-offend.

Sentencing in the judicial system forced a sentencing for a definite term indicating a fixed time sentencing, which gave the defendant a fixed number of years to serve (Siegel, L. 2014). For example, the sentencing could be up to 20 years for robbery or a repeat offender could serve a 15 year term or a robbery with less violations might receive as little as 5 years (Siegel, L. 2014). Determinate sentencing actually reduced imprisonment (Siegel, L. and Bartollas, C. 2014).

The mandatory minimum sentencing laws were passed as an effort to combat the war on drugs, with the anticipation that it would lock away high-level drug lords and discourage others from dealing drugs. However, the law requires judges to issue unwarranted, lengthy sentences without regard to the facts of the case. As a result, the law has overpopulated our prisons with nonviolent, low-level drug offenders, while the high-level drug lords are still free. This is because of the practice that one’s sentence can be reduced if they testify against others, and the high-level drug offenders have more to offer than those on the lower level. The Smarter Sentencing

“It emphasizes efficiency and the capacity to catch, try, convict, and punish a high proportion of offenders; it also stresses speed and finality. (Cole & Smith, 2010). The prosecutor in this model looks at the evidence, and chances of getting a conviction. If there is a slight chance, then the state will not move forward with prosecution of the case. If there is a preponderance of evidence then the prosecution will begin bargaining with the defense, agree on a jail term, and the defendant then usually pleads guilty to the charges. This is a fast and efficient method, which saves money by keeping many trials out of court. On the other hand there is a higher likelihood that innocent people who are facing a long sentence, would plea out to a lesser sentence rather than risking getting the longer time in jail. Think about it, if you were innocent of a charge, and facing life in prison, but were offered a five-year sentence with parole, what would you do? You could simply take the time and move on, or risk a jury trial, where there is a possibility you would still be found guilty. These are the tough decisions that some innocent people have to actually face. Many people that are guilty of crimes also benefit from this system, by getting a lesser sentence. Is the cost of saving money, worth letting a guilty person back on the streets sooner? I do not believe it is worth saving the money, and feel that if you are guilty of a crime then you should

In Glenn Ford’s case, his state-provided lawyers had “never even stepped foot in the courtroom before…they never tried a case and [were] defending a capital case." One specialized in oil and gas law and the other had never appeared before a jury, making the pair woefully ill equipped for the most momentous occasion in the defendant’s life. Playing off of Mr. Ford’s fears and cowering behind the gravitas of the prosecution, they urged Mr. Ford to plead guilty in exchange for a lesser sentence. Little did Ford know that the outcome would be dire, unwittingly driving the final nail in his own coffin. Obviously, plea-bargaining brings about many advantages. In most cases, it minimizes the risk of longer sentences if the prosecution uncovers more damning evidence, as well as shortens trial lengths. This works particularly well for those that already know of their guilt, who can choose the lesser of two evils—the devil they know. Drawing fewer trials, bargaining supposedly carries the added benefit of minimizing backlogs and enabling more cases to be heard in a given period of time. Yet, many of the troubles of plea-bargaining go overlooked. Though some may be genuinely innocent, defendants often plead guilty to more lenient sentences rather than risk the possibility of harsher penalties from a trial's decision—made especially more tempting if they have a poor defense team. Furthermore, plead-bargaining essentially skates around rigorous methods of truth-seeking; thoroughness and impartiality play second fiddle to backdoor wheeling and dealing, making things more a matter of what’s convenient to the parties involved than finding

One of the problems with the law is its principle of removing judicial discretion. This severely hinders a judge's ability to make a punishment fit the crime. While some felons

The author would have to say that the statistics coupled with the creation of the United States Sentencing Committee reveal that judicial discretion was at a much higher level prior to 1984, and has been on a decline as legislature has begun to regulate the discretion in which judges having in regard to sentencing in criminal cases. “Anderson, Kling, and Smith (1999) investigated 77,201 criminal cases decided between

The judicial system supports the behaviors of making an individual a repeat offender. The prosecution process is flawed when punishing criminals for their crimes. White-collar crimes may not appear to be taken as seriously as other crimes, (i.e., murder, rape, armed robbery, etc.) so the jail sentencing will not be as impactful. This action sends the message to criminals that with softer criminal tactics, they will not do hard time. According to the text, “Jail time does not offer amicable solution, because in most times the intended offense is not prosecuted” (Lilly, Cullen & Ball, 2011).

In the twentieth century, White Collar and Organized Crimes have attracted the attention of the U.S. Criminal Justice System due to the greater cost to society than most normal street crime. Even with the new attention by the Criminal Justice System, both are still pretty unknown to the general public. Although we know it occurs, due to the lack of coverage and information, society does not realize the extent of these crimes or the impact. White Collar and Organized is generally crime committed by someone that is considered respectable and has a high social status. The crimes committed usually consist of fraud, insider trading, bribery, embezzlement, money laundering, identity theft or forgery. One