Prosecuting The Melting Pot
Helen T. Nguyen
Rowan-Cabarrus Community College
Abstract
Vincent Bugliosi (2001) put it best when he said:
For a lawyer to do less than his utmost is, I strongly feel, a betrayal of his client. Though in criminal trials one tends to focus on the defense attorney and his client the accused, the prosecutor is also a lawyer, and he too has a client: the People. And the People are equally entitled to their day in court, to a fair and impartial trial, and to justice. (p. 166)
This essay will inform how to get to achieving a prosecutor position, what life is like after getting the job, and the different possibilities after a few years of experience.
Prosecuting The Melting Pot
Section I Ever since as a young child, I have had an unreasonable anger and resentment towards felonists. There has never been anything that made me more outraged than someone that had placed harm onto another being for vengeance and/or entertainment. According to the Crime and Justice Atlas 2000, crime rates have raised and dropped as much as 900 in a small community of 100,000 in just the past twenty years (“2000”, p. 36). From this very reason, criminal prosecutors, also known as district attorneys (D.A.), were created and hired to take on the demanding job of putting away the masterminds of these crimes behind bars. Criminal prosecutors are trained to keep the world go round by proving the criminal’s unlawful actions through analyzing police
Adam Foss, makes his case for a reformed justice system that replaces wrath with opportunity, changing people’s lives for the better instead of ruining them…by shifting his focus from incarceration to transforming lives, reinventing the roles of the criminal prosecutor (Foss, 2016). To help understand individuals and how and why certain behaviors take place, the type of qualitative research chosen would focus on individuals by examining the criminal activity of the defendant in addition to their demographics and prior history and location of the crime. A prosecutor should not institute, or cause to be instituted, or to permit the continued pendency of criminal charges when the prosecutor knows that the charges are not supported by probable
This document covers the policy rationales for felon disfranchisement laws and how society considers felons less honorable and accountable than non-felon citizens Society and laws enacted condemn those who cannot follow the law should not participate in the passing of laws that govern law-abiding citizens
Forcelli explains his displeasure of our broken criminal justice system when he states, “The sad part is that getting an innocent man out of jail is way, way, way harder than putting a guilty man in jail.” When detectives are constantly pressured to close cases and produce high conviction rates it can cause in accuracies in convictions. Garry’s case is a perfect example of how a case with minimal evidence can result in an innocent getting placed in prison. Garry has sat in prison for over 20 years waiting to appeal his case and plead his innocence. The ease of convicting an innocent man should be consistent with difficulty of exonerating an innocent man. In Garry’s case he awaits a decision from a judge where the judge has three options, to exonerate him, grant a retrial, or
Within the book, Dershowitz poses the question of whether prosecutors and defense attorneys are advocates for justice, or only for their clients. The reason for lawyers choosing a client can
The main purpose of this article is to look at the possible link between race and exoneration, and how race and wrongful convictions lead to the exonerations. There were three reasons that the authors chose this topic to research. The first reason was the research previously done in the field show racial biased in the criminal justice system. This paper looks at how that effects wrongful conviction and the subsequent exoneration. The second reason is because if there is an innocent person in prison that means that the real culprit is still out there, and more than likely committing more crimes. The third reason is racial composition of the dyad, victim and
From policing to a trial and the trail sentencing racial disparities persist at every stage of the United States Criminal Justice System. There are not a single factor that has contributed to racial profiling than the War on Drugs. All ethnic groups use and sell drugs at the same rate. Blacks and Hispanics comprise over 50% of these offenses. Whether on the federal, state, or local level police officers exercise discretion when determining whether someone’s behavior is suspicious enough that an investigation is done. Racial bias keeps more people of color in prisons and on probation than ever
Since the beginning of time, the United States’ Criminal Justice System (CJS) has been scrutinized and will continue to be. If significant changes were to occur within the CJS it could potentially take decades. Different persons, institutions, governments, and even departments within governments have different views; it is a natural occurrence. Thus, as with any subject matter, there are always controversies that cause disruption within society. Often, the controversies stem from the lack of understanding and the historical patterns of unsupported data.
For the past 50 years, America’s criminal justice system has encountered several significant changes dealing with courts and policing. According to Marion and Oliver (2006), the historical Supreme Court rulings like Mapp v. Ohio and Miranda v. Arizona mold the way courts and law enforcement handle individuals charged with committing crimes. This paper will discuss the evolution of courts and law enforcement reflects the diverse and changing need for today’s population which is first importance, the urgency for cooperation and communication among criminal justice agencies and law enforcement within the country. Individuals must
The Justice system seeks to prevent crimes and to capture those who have committed crimes. But what are the causes of crime, maybe poverty, or greed, or is sometimes caused by the system. Is the risk worth the reward and is reward the worth risking the punishment? Power and influence is threaded deeply into the Criminal Justice System. Are all offenders caught and processed with the same demeanor and given the same punishment? The system needs to be impartial to all offenders regardless of the offender’s social position, job or yearly income. The general punishment for most crimes is incarceration in most states with a difference in duration to adjust per each crime. This is the deterrent against crime. This is what should be keeping
The news media as most other print, radio, and television media are in a constant competition for ratings. A direct result of this rating competition is the sensationalizing of the media reports received by the general public. One of the most significant problems resulting from the news media’s misrepresentation of crime is the mistrust it creates between the general public and the criminal justice system. If the public were only to believe what is reported by the various news media, then the assumption would have to be that all the crime in this country is at the felonious level in which someone is usually killed with a gun. According to Bohm and Haley (2011), the distribution of police calls indicates that the majority of crime is anything
Leaders of the criminal justice system need to think strategically. A challenge for public administration in the 21st century is to recognize the relevance of these
This has to be one of my favorite assignments since becoming a student at Kaplan. I have been interested in the Criminal Justice since I was a small child. I come from a long line of military, however, my passion has always been Criminal Law. I remember even as a young girl in the 2nd grand, I had dreams and aspirations of becoming a lawyer. Now that I have an ex husband, and two children of my own and find the justice system a little “Leewayish” (if that’s even a word) on dead beat fathers, my dream has now become to be a “Ball busting District Attorney for deadbeat moms and dads. I am sick and tired of
The public has a fascination and obsession over crime and criminals, but people want to know how those crimes are dealt with in the criminal justice system, in court and on the streets. “Now that the penal system has forsworn the former, and confined the latter within prison walls, the public turns to the news media. Stories relating to criminal justice are never far from the front pages and from the collective consciousness” (Roberts 99). We as American citizens have no choice but to watch the news or read the daily newspaper and get the latest crime right across the headlines. Learning about the new political and economic burning topics of the day seem to be at the majority of peoples interest.
“While elected officials are charged with managing the administration of criminal justice, they always do so with an eye toward politics, and herein lies an important source of the tension between the pursuit of coherent policy
In the past fifty years, the American system of criminal justice has undergone a number of critical changes involving policing, the courts and corrections. Landmark Supreme Court rulings, such as Miranda v. Arizona, and Mapp v. Ohio have shaped the way that law enforcement, as well as our courts, deal with individuals accused of committing crimes (Marion and Oliver, 2006).