justice in america

A detailed Summary of justice in america

The fallibility of man and of his decisions is an inevitability for which society has had to make allowances. Due to this mundane imperfection, humanity, by necessity, has acquired a tolerance for the accidental and imprudent. Thankfully, these indiscretions and lapses of good judgment are typically minor, without long-term or significant consequences. However, when ordinary men and women, subject to bias, prejudice, and all other human failings, are charged with the extraordinary responsibility of issuing an acquittal or condemnation, the slightest error can carry the greatest of consequences. To insure the justness of trial, verdict and sentence, the American justice system is forced to rely upon the judgment of the common man. Unfortunately, this same trial system of justice can turn arbitrary, and can be manipulated to allow guilty citizens the sweet air of freedom while delivering the innocent into the cold hands of death and confinement. Nowhere is the of the American justice system's struggle to cast aside the prejudice and bias that is inherent in human character while maintaining the sanctity of the constitutional trial-by-peer procedure more prominent than in literature and film. The fact that petty matters as an unfavo

The feeling of excessive defensiveness and anger are expressed by Claude McKay's in his "If We Must Die," in which he describes himself and the black community as hunted animals in relationship to the white man's justice system which is the barking dogs. He feels that he is being actively pursued by law for no reason other than the way that he was born and because of this arbors a deep resentment towards the legal system. To fight this injustice, he calls to his "kinsmen" and beckons of them a violent strike back. The cyclical pattern of indiscriminant violence does little more than to further it.

In "A Lesson," the court scene is also extremely limited and only reports verbatim the closing arguments of Jackson's lawyer, which sound more like a guilty plea than an attempt to free the accused. The lack of detail in the courthouse expresses Gaines' feelings of bias judgment towards blacks in the legal system. Meager are the attempts to acquit the innocent Jefferson. Even if Jefferson's lawyer wanted to save him (which he really doesn't) his lack of experience in such cases would dramatically limit his ability to do so. Once the verdict of guilty is reached, no attempt at an appeal is made, although there is an almost automatic writ of certiorari issued in all capital punishment cases. This symbolically represents a lack of concern and procedure from not only the Executive but also the judicial branch as well. Ironically, while both were established to insure justice, due to racial prejudice, effectively conspired to put an innocent man to death.

Once the case has been argued in court, the accused is completely at the mercy of the jury, perhaps the most faulty and inaccurate aspect of the justice system. Average, untrained citizens, unaccustomed to the fine details of decision and law, are charged with the grave responsibility of issuing a verdict. So many extraneous elements that can sway the judgment are

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Approximate Word count = 1294
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English