The Injustice Of The Us Justice System

Courts are established social, political, and judicial institutions necessary for the manifestation of justice and the maintenance of law and order. The courts are part of the judicial branch of government, as outlined in Article III of the United States Constitution. Courts are the arenas in which the law is tried and applied. Judges are the presiding officers of the court. The United States Supreme Court is the most fundamental court because has "the authority to decide the constitutionality of federal laws and resolve other disputes over them," (United States Courts, 2012). This is true even though even though the court does not expressly enforce that law; enforcement is the province of the executive branch.

The Justice System is a topic that has stirred up a lot of controversy throughout time. Is it fair or is it not? Throughout hundreds of years, people have been treated justly and unjustly by this system. In this paper, I will only be discussing my opinion on America’s justice system. However, there are many other Justice Systems that I will not get to discuss. America’s Justice System is made up of 3 parts. The Law Enforcement, the Adjudication, and the Correction. The Justice System was created to control crime and punish those who commit illegal actions. Without this system, our country would crumble and fall. Although it has been unfair on numerous occasions, we still should respect the law.

For instance, the cost to execute someone is 5x times more than keeping them in jail. Cases without the death penalty cost roughly about $740,000 depending on the situation, while cases with the death penalty cost roughly $1.26 million, and maintaining each death row prisoners cost taxpayers $90,000 more per year than a prisoner in general population. Additionally, Texas has made 474 executions since 1976, and the next closest state to that number is Virginia with 109 executions. There are still several states that have made 0 executions or very little compared to Texas. Moreover, some argue against the death penalty because of wrongful convictions and innocent killings. In the Larry Griffin case, an investigation by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund has uncovered evidence that Griffin may have been innocent of his crime. Investigators say his case is the strongest demonstration yet on executing an innocent man, due to the fact it violates the Eighth Amendment. There’s also principles at conflict, like popular sovereignty and federalism because opposition to the death penalty has increased dramatically since the 1900s. There are 31 states with the death penalty legalized and 19 that have abolished it; however, there’s 5 states that have a moratorium on executions. To conclude, the states depict if the death penalty is legal or not based on the people’s votes, and the states having the power to vote represents

In what ways is the indigenous justice paradigm in conflict with the principles of the traditional, adversarial American criminal justice system? In what ways do the principles of Native American justice complement more mainstream correctional initiatives?

Much of the court's time could be saved if death row inmates were limited to a set number of appeals in a reasonable amount of time. Facilitating numerous appeals results in many unforeseen costs. In 1992, expenditures on criminal justice activities by all federal, state, and local governments combined reached $299 per capita.(BJS) Ted Bundy's 10 year stay on death row, involving numerous appeals and excessive imprisonment fees, eventually cost the Florida state taxpayers more than $6 million dollars.(Lamar 34) These expenses are unnecessary and unjustifiable and could be alleviated by limiting appeals. In addition to this, public defense expenditures reached a startling $16.4 billion in 1990, which breaks down to about $7 per capita for each case tried in public defense costs alone.(Capital Punishment 1992) Although these figures are for total spending on public defense, it is easy to deduce that by limiting the number of appeals for death row inmates, these figures could be significantly reduced.

It has been reported that millions of crimes is committed in the United States of America which violates and harms the individual rights, properties, and freedoms that are not only guaranteed to American citizens of this country. It has been highlighted that justice is dealt with according to the crimes committed based on the findings and principles of our country, which derived from the Constitution of the United States. While it has been argued justice may not always be fair due to certain rights given to those who may be charged with crime sometimes an error is made. A simple mistake, a missing or broken link in the chain that represents the investigation and trial processes causes an innocent bystander to become caught up in an investigation. More importantly, in many cases can result in a wrongful conviction. This error can rise from many forms like a mistaken eyewitness identification, a false confession, misconduct of the governing authorities, improper forensic investigation, or including staff that neglect to make efforts or unskilled litigation by the defense attorneys. Those whom are affected endure years in prison, deal with lost wages, isolation from friends and family, scrutiny from potential employers, and isolation from their community.

“The court finds you guilty on all accounts. You are sentenced to 35 years in federal prison. Court dismissed.” If only justice in America was the same as a hollywood movie, where, in the end, each and every person put on trial receives a true and just verdict. It would be nice if America’s justice system was designed so that “you couldn’t be the next victim of corruption - innocent and sent to prison, or strapped to a table and put to death; or robbed of your life savings by American lawyers” (Sachs, America’s Corrupt Legal). Welcome to the new America, where all it takes is pockets as deep as the Pacific Ocean to be innocent and poverty to be found guilty, thrown in jail, and not given a second thought. Although America often prides itself on its just ways of governing and dealing with potential criminals, the justice system is often corrupted because of social issues, ethical issues, corrupt officials, and control of the press.

Since the policy was enacted in the early 1990s, three strikes laws have been one of the most controversial issues facing the American criminal justice system. In general, advocates believe that locking up criminals will protect society. Critics believe that three-strike policy can only be effective with offenders that are on their last strikes (Worrall, 2008). However, other critics explain how three-strike laws don’t significantly reduce crime because most criminals mature out of the criminal lifestyle (Worrall, 2004).

In the United States the criminal justice system does not always create policies that affect everyone equally. There are many policies that seem to target a specific group of people, whether this is intentional or not is beside the point. The important thing is to change the criminal justice system in order to stop race disparities. Marc Mauer in his lecture speaks of the reason for the disparity between races when it comes to the incarceration rate, as well as steps that can be taken in order to elevate, and or stop the disparity in the criminal justice system. Other topics that Mauer covers are the impact that policies can have on a specific group in the United States, and the overwhelming disproportion when it comes to drug arrest, and the people who get arrested.

The American Criminal Justice system is arguably one of the most fair systems in the world. However, like anything it has its flaws. There are many flaws but the largest three, in my opinion, would be the fact that we have the highest incarceration rate of any other country, the high penalties for drug users, as well as the jury system. The high incarceration rates and the penalties for drug users affect each other but they are still issues on their own. In fact, many of issues within our system coincide within each other.

The judicial processes that have been adopted by the current criminal justice system of the United States of America include mandatory minimums that diminish the importance of certain factors in a case such as the context of the situation and the power of judges to decide on an appropriate sentence; furthermore, they result in more serious, yet overlooked, implications of racial bias and unfair plea bargaining. Mandatory minimums are strict sentences that a judge must abide by when determining how much prison time the accused is to receive as punishment. Although the majority of offenses to which mandatory minimums apply to are drug offenses, there are a variety of offenses including immigration, firearms, and fraud that are linked to a minimum sentence. The concept of enacting mandatory minimum sentences to particular offenses has such a great influence on court verdicts that in the fiscal year of 2010 alone, “27.2% of cases involved a conviction of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum [and] 53.4%...remained subject to the mandatory minimum penalty at sentencing” (USSC, 121). When the government first instituted mandatory minimums for drug offenses with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, it was meant to resolve the problems of drug distribution and abuse, but these sentences bring about more problems than resolutions. As the time approaches to impose a sentence for a case involving a mandatory minimum, the judge has no choice but to assign the accused at least that amount

less often unjustly inflicted than others" (192). Statistics reveal that there is far less number of death sentences than life imprisonment sentences without parole given out every year. According to Federal Justice Statistics, in 1998, there were approximately 5000 criminals sentenced to life imprisonment as opposed to 74 criminals sentenced to death (Internet). This shows that judicial system itself is very careful with death sentences. Even if we assume that there are chances that an innocent person is executed, it is the problem with the trial, not the punishment. "It is not the penalty - whether death or prison - which is unjust when inflicted on the innocent, but its imposition on the innocent", writes Haag (192). When an innocent person

According to Maxeiner (2012); their area unit two principal objectives of criminal justice, to set up the difficulty for effective decision-making and therefore the ability to come to a decision. These a number of the cited as a number of the most things that show however Germany 's criminal justice system contrasts with the America 's criminal justice system. supported this; this essay are going to be comparison at a number of the basic variations between America’s and Germany’s scheme (Maxeiner, 2012). For instance; it 's clear that America 's judges square measure arguably disemboweled and second prosecution and police agencies is on the state level and not native level. America 's criminal justice acts on the class-conscious system and in contrast to America, Germany 's functionary square measure continually an official. Germany 's criminal procedure operates on one code and is more unified compared to America (Maxeiner, 2012). distinction between America and Deutschland’s Substantive Law one among the most variations between the Yankee and German criminal justice is that since America embraces death penalty; there 's none in Germany (Maxeiner, 2012). Germany 's sentences square measure much deemed lower compared to America, and this is often by the distinction in decision-making by judges from these nations. For example; each countries use police and prosecutors to analyze and gift a case before the court (Maxeiner, 2012). On the contrary; the excellence comes once the

The criminal prosecutions section of my transitional justice strategy will be spilled into two parts. The first stage I will focus on the past actions of American slavery and the second will focus on the current day abuses against the African American population within the United States.

There are many types of justice, but the only type that is black-and-white is lawful justice under a government. Justice under law in the United States is clearly defined and, for the most part, it is proven. So if justice is doing what is right according to the law, then without lawful justice, all other forms of justice and fairness cannot exist.