Tuesday, October 30, 2007
presumption of Iinnocence as it is
Because the current situation sheds light on an insufficient judicial process to insure an assumption of innocence, changes need to be made in selecting those who affect individual court cases. It is inevitable that some who are selected as jurors or even judges will not adhere to the policy of presuming innocence—just look at this juror’s blog before the court case even began when he posted that he had to “listen to the local riff-raff try and convince me of their innocence.” Though jurors are usually decided upon by both the defense and the prosecuting attorney, some jurors, such as the one just mentioned, will slip through their fingers, and the jury will not uphold its obligation in whole. People will die and serve unfair sentences because jurors will come in to duty with an a priori notion that the defendant is guilty. And so will judges, just like the judge of the Robin Hood Woods murder cases did. Though some states have already taken it upon themselves to create tests and to come up with other ideas to end biased thinking in the jury box, the prevalent unsavory, biased approach to trials will continue and leave many nondeserving victims behind in its path.
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4 comments:
I feel that this is a valid statement concerning the way in which juries operate in the US. Though it is depressing to think about, I feel that there really isn't a feasible way to eliminate juror biases, considering the majority of people tend to have stereotypes about people different from them. It is also impossible to select of jury of peers for many accused criminals, especially if the accused is a minority in terms of class, race, or religion. It is obvious that a Hispanic atheist on welfare will face more challenges in terms of a jury than a middle class Baptist white woman. This is not enforcing the idea of a fair trial in any sense of the word, but until people develop a deeper ability to understand the situations of others and abandon harmful stereotypes we will continue to get wrongful convictions based on appearance rather than evidence.
I think you make an extremely valid point here with talking about the validity of innocent until proven guilty. It was something I was wondering myself when watching Paradise Lost and couldn't help but think of the factors that would cause a jury to convict three teenagers of a crime that, in my opinion, did not add up. One thing that I think would be extremely interesting to look into is a statistic about the media's influence. The way cases are so highly publicized these days, even like the cases in Paradise Lost. It has been shown throughout history what the media can do when involved in anything political. Look at how televising the presidential debates changed the course of one election dramatically , Kennedy vs. Nixon. So with the that technology is always changing and we can access almost any type of information at a moments notice through devices like the internet, is there really anyway to say that no one is biased when coming into a case? I hate the fact that everyone keeps pointing their fingers at the judicial branch when it comes to saying the people in the jury are not neutral. But the fact of the matter is, it is our obsession with the media and the opinions formed through it and the people in the society not taking control over the situation that the jury is having a problem with staying neutral. Maybe society needs a lesson on how to treat other's, treat someone how you would want to be treated. Respect the rights of others as you would want your rights to be respected. If we stopped putting our noses in where they don't belong then maybe our system would work out the way it is suppose to FAIRLY. The ironic thing is society obsession to see others fail is causing our justice system to fail.
I feel like so many of the blogs are dealing with stereotypes in our society that are not going to change overnight, or even in many years to come. The problems we face need immediate fixes, however, such as the issue of the biased jury. We cannot have our supposedly just society being ruled unjustly. This being said, we must discover a way to minimize the influence of these stereotypes and biases until hopefully we can rid our society of these untrue beliefs. The idea of the tests is a great step in the process of providing an immediate fix to one of the most pressing problems of our judicial system.
It is scary to think how different jurors can have such a large effect on how the final sentencing goes. It seems so random and irrational, as different jury members will have had different experiences in their lives that shape their world views.
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