Exemplification Essay: Ferrell's Sacrifice

“A boy was accused of stealing a backpack. The courts took the next three years of his life.” Stated Jennifer Gonnerman in her article Before the Law.

On March 14, 2013, the writer of this work attended a criminal sentencing docket at the Morgan County Courthouse in the Circuit Court in Decatur, Alabama. The Honorable Glenn Thompson was presiding over the criminal sentencing docket. The docket was five pages long with multiple attorneys and defendants present in the courtroom.

The memorandum written by Deputy Attorney General, Sally Quillian Yates represents a significant change in the government's approach toward corporate misconduct. The priority for prosecution will focus on individuals who commit the wrongdoing within the corporation and ensure that the responsible individuals are accountable for their misconduct. Under the Yates Memo, for companies to be considered eligible for any cooperation credit, the corporation is required to provide the Department of Justice with all relevant facts about an individuals' involvement in the organizations misconduct. Thus, corporations may no longer have the option to determine what information about which employees can be disclosed to the prosecutors. As a matter of fact,

Almost every day, we hear about justice being served upon criminals and we, as a society, feel a sense of relief that another threat to the public has been sentenced to a term in prison, where they will no longer pose a risk to the world at large. However, there are very rare occasions where the integrity of the justice system gets skewed and people who should not have been convicted are made to serve heavy prison sentences. When word of this judicial misstep reaches the public, there is social outcry, and we begin to question the judicial system for committing such a serious faux pas.

In the book The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, Reuven Malter is shaped by everyone around him. During this interaction his character becomes more developed and engaging. Through the interactions, it becomes apparent that Reuven’s father is always teaching his child how to improve himself. The conversations between Reuven and his father help prepare Reuven develop the mentality and the personal qualities, such as wisdom, compassion, and tolerance, necessary to become a rabbi.

Bryan Stevenson was a lawyer based out of Montgomery, Alabama. He helped many of these people get an honest, fair sentence. Through the publication of his book, he has educated many on the reality of our prison systems in America. He shares his firsthand accounts of children being charged as adults, innocent men being charged for crimes they had clearly not had any involvement with, and women living in poverty being charged with murder for burying their stillborn children. All of these cases had one thing in common: poverty.

Jaime Arellano was only sixteen when he decided to get behind the wheel intoxicated, which in return led to the death of a pregnant woman and her unborn child. In 2007, his case was immediately moved to the adult court of Texas where he was sentenced 20 years in prison. Jaime Arellano, is a Mexican immigrant, which in itself is considered to be in society in the “lowest of standings”. A formerly high school dropout with no money to pay for a highly credibly attorney, the state assigned him one. The attorney could not possibly argue his client’s innocence due to any psychological reasons such as “afluenza”, which resulted in a plea deal of 20 years instead of the 50 he was facing. On the other hand, we have the “afluenza teen” Ethan Couch, who in 2013, killed twice the

Kenzie Houk had everything going for her. She was twenty-six, engaged to the love of her life, and was eight-and-a-half months pregnant. In the late winter of 2009, her four-year-old daughter waddled in her bedroom, hoping to surprise her mommy with a good morning smile. Instead, she found her mother with a bullet through her head. Eleven-year-old Jordan Brown, the soon-to-be stepson of Kenzie Houk, was arrested and charged with homicide, pulling the trigger before he went to school. There were two counts of homicide, one for Kenzie Houk and the other for her baby. Brown was tried in juvenile court and sentenced to a residential treatment facility until the age of twenty-one. To Kenzie Houk’s family, Brown’s sentence would never live up to that her four-year-old and seven-year old daughters would have to serve. “The day Kenzie was murdered, the whole family was served with a life sentence,” said Debbie Houk, the victim’s mother. “[Her daughters] are serving life right now. They are never going to see their mom” (Chen). Serious juvenile crimes, similar to this, cannot be properly justified in the juvenile justice system. Juveniles should be tried in the adult criminal court system for serious crimes because of the lack of severity in the juvenile court system, increased youth crime and recidivism rates, and the mental maturity of juvenile offenders.

Currently Arizona holds the ninth highest incarceration rate in the nation. Responsible for the drastic rate of incarcerated inmates, is the mandatory minimum sentencing laws that have named Arizona the incarceration capital. By implementing the mandatory minimum sentencing law, the discretion that lay within the position as a judge is challenged by that of the prosecutor. With Arizona’s sentencing enhancement making little distinction between individuals who are responsible for either serious or petty crimes,

By way of background, Wisconsin’s current sentencing structure is relatively new; it was overhauled between 1998 and 2003 under the provisions of the state’s Truth

On December 17, 1992, 15 year-old Jacob Ind went to school after having murdered his mother and stepfather in the early hours of that morning. In an interview with Frontline he recalled, “I remember I was sitting in the police station and this is how out of touch of reality I was. I had a small amount of marijuana, like an eighth of an ounce, in my bedroom. And I 'm telling my brother, 'You got to get the marijuana or else I 'm in trouble” (Profile Jacob Ind). His attorneys contended that he was acting in self-defense, claiming that the murders were the climax of years of insult by his parents. On June 17, 1994, he was convicted and handed a mandatory sentence of lifetime without parole. This is just one of many life experiences of juveniles sentenced to life without parole in the U.S. There have been many other instances where the juvenile was not the real murderer, but was however given the lifetime without parole sentence. In those instances the defendant would have been convicted of felony murder, in which the defendant could have just been an active participant in a crime during which a murder was committed and consequently, spend life in jail without parole. Felony murder came into play in the case of Devon and Jovon Knox, in July 2007, the 17-year-old twins set out to steal a car together (Sentencing Juveniles). During the car jack, one of the brothers shot and killed the car’s owner. The panel could not decide which brother pulled

Throughout the novel, the puritans seem to judge Hester so harshly that they can’t see through to her true nature. They continue to isolate her from society and talk negatively about her behind her back. The puritans actions and beliefs can be related to a scaffold. Both seemingly innocent, but once someone understands their true nature, they are the true enemy. The scaffold has such a negative connotation for the puritans. This is very ironic because the puritans are very negative towards the people that stand on the scaffold. Both the scaffold and the puritans represent some sort of evil and a form of disrespect.

The film Edward Scissorhands is a contemporary archetype of the gothic genre exploring themes such as unrequited love, social rejection and human creation as defined by Tim Burton. Feature films explore different ideals that can be categorized into different genres that create expectations among audiences about characters, settings, plots and themes. Edward Scisscorhands directed by Tim Burton in the year 1990 is described as both a dark romantic fantasy and a gothic horror film. The film tells a story about Edward Scissorhands, the creation of an elderly inventor who dies before he can give Edward his normal hands in place of his scissor hands. Edward is taken from the mansion he lives in by a suburban family in an attempt to live a

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.

Audie Murphy was the most decorated American Army soldier of World War II. The orphaned son of Texas sharecroppers, he enlisted at age 18 and went on to win two dozen military medals for valor, including the Congressional Medal of Honor. After the war Murphy parlayed his war time fame into a career as a movie actor, song writer, and business man. He wrote his war memoirs, To Hell and Back, and played himself in the 1955 movie of the same name. The 20th of June is officially Audie Murphy Day in Texas. Audie Murphy was born in Kingston, Hunt County, Texas. He died at Roanoke, Virginia and he was buried in the Arlington National Cemetery.