5. Self Analysis - Too Close to Animals, Too Closed to Reality.

At the beginning, I felt that the link between animal abuse and human abuse really brought in a new perspective to look at justice in our society. However, as I tried to develop my argument, it became apparent that this link was not at all straightforward and easy. It required a great extent of detailed case comparisons as well as a very open mind to the ugliness of reality.

Throughout my research, I found difficulty in trying to find recent sources that laid out the punishment that were given to animal abusers as well as murderers. There was no apparent source that explored the discrepancy between the punishment given for these two crimes, although they are rather similar in nature. Hence, without many accurate examples, I found it hard to strengthen my argument. Even with a handful of relevant case studies, I still feel that there are many other factors that can affect the severity of punishment given. Just a case in point, could the media and apparent public humiliation have lighten the sentence of Michael Vic's case? Such details require more time and resources, which I did not exactly have in abundance. And my worry is that this limitation may have limited my own judgments and affected the credibility of my comparisons.

However, putting this problems aside, I feel like I have really benefited from exploring this issue. Having a very strong attachment to animals and nature, I find myself needing to be constantly reminded not to let emotions form the bulk of my argument. For example, it is so easy to simply argue that animal abusers should receive the same punishments as murderers, but when you really sit down and explore the issue, you realize that it is a very slippery argument - especially when it comes down to killing animals for food and game (culture).

Two interesting finds that was not included in my previous posts were the ideas of Louis P. Pojman, Jeffrey Reiman, and Otto Kiefer. Pojman and Reiman pointed out that even though Americans seem to be unsure about issues regarding the death penalty, it is because they are pulled between the noble desire to do justice and the equally worthy instinct of compassion. In the same way, why so many of us may be hesitant in insisting severe punishments for animal abusers could be because we are living in the 'real world' where issues are complex and often entangled in moral conflict. We are torn by questions like whether it go against human compassion to take a boy's life simply for committing one mischievous act that harmed his pet? Although disheartened at the injustice placed on animals till today, Otto Kiefer's words bring comfort as she moralized that: “Those orgies of hate and cruelty [by ancient Romans] were bound to produce the gospel of love… the whole of Roman sadism is a necessary step towards a new, a truly noble {Christian} state of humanity”. In other words, the cruelty of the past and the present is necessary to produce a better world for our children! Similarly, todays overwhelming leniency towards animal abusers eventually would spur the desire for positive change. For the beauty of human society is that we are morally guided to learn from the tragedies and violence of our past.

Finally, this process has allowed me to practice the technique of 'lensing' which is something like looking at an issue through another totally unrelated one. In this case, it was to look at the punishment for murder through the issue of animal abuse. This really created a whole interesting topic for me to explore, not just for this project, but also for my personal intellectual growth in the future. All in all, I had a great experience through this exercise, partly due to the informality and argumentative nature of blogging. Thanks to everyone for the positive learning experience!

Interview

Interview with Chief Judge Robert J. Conrad, Jr. United States District Court

"I've provided informal answers to the questions as best I could, given the time constraints, and the limitations on what I can say as a judge. These are my personal thoughts off the top of my head and are not given in any official capacity." -Robert J Conrad,Jr.

1. Do you think the plea bargaining process is essential in keeping our
judicial system afloat? Why or why not?

Response: Trials are time consuming, so are appeals. It would be difficult if not impossible to try every case that was charged. Plea bargaining has been recognized as necessary and proper by the Supreme Court and is provided for by the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. It recognizes the resource issues of the system including the limitations on availability of courtrooms, shortage of prosecutors, demands on the jury system etc.

In short the system of plea bargaining involves the prosecution agreeing to pursue fewer charges or a reduced sentence or other concessions to the defendant in exchange for his agreement to plead guilty and not go to trial. Often other concessions are involved to such as the waiver of appeal rights. Frequently, defendants agree to cooperate in the prosecution of others in the hope of an even greater reduction in sentence.

3. What do you believe are the roles of the prosecutor in the plea
bargaining process?

Response: The role of a prosecutor is to disclose exculpatory evidence and other evidence required by the rules such as a statement of the defendant in the possession of the government. It is to be honest. The prosecutor is not required to plea bargain but if he chooses to do so he must do it with integrity toward the defendant, his attorney and the court. An excellent description of the duties of a federal prosecutor is found in an opinion by Justice Sutherland (link attached) many years ago in the case of United States v. Williams.

4. Most defense attorneys will argue that most of the power, if not all, lies within the prosecutor. Why or why not should they feel this way?

Response: The prosecutor has substantial power in determining what charges to bring and what offers to make. Congress has passed certain laws, particularly in the drug trafficking and illegal possession/use of firearms areas, that provide for statutory mandatory minimums. They can lead to harsh results with no discretion for the Court. This fuels the notion held by some that prosecutorial power is enhanced.

On the other hand, the defendant has the power to exercise his constitutional right to a trial by a jury of his peers, to have counsel, to call and cross examine witnesses, to exercise his right not to testify and to force the government to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to the unanimous satisfaction of all 12 jurors.

5. In general, what injustices, if any, come about with the plea
bargaining process?

Response: Potential injustices can occur as a result of prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective representation, bad choices by defendants, perjurious testimony etc.

Injustices can occur when mandatory minimum sentences and other sentences involving little discretion by the court are applied without regard to the unique circumstances of each defendant and each case.

6. Approximately 95% of criminal cases end with plea bargaining, one of the main reasons for this is because of efficiency. Do you feel as if defendants feel pressure to go along with plea bargaining because of
the long wait of a fair trial?

Response: A defendant has a constitutional and statutory right to a speedy trial. He/she should not plead guilty solely to avoid a long wait but should, through his lawyer, assert his/her right to a speedy trial if that is indeed what he/she desires.

7. How would you change our system to ensure that each defendant could receive a fair trial within a more timely manner?

Response: Take a look at the attached plea form that judges in our district use to guide their inquiry into making sure a defendant enters a voluntary and knowing plea of guilty. This is essential to the fairness and constitutionality of plea bargaining.

In addition, lawyers for the government and the defendant must be men and women of high character, intelligence and diligent in their work product. Prosecutors must be scrupulously honest and comply with the rules of discovery and other rules governing their conduct. Defense lawyers must zealously represent their clients in an effective manner. Judges must provide defendants with a fair trial or hearing, treat them with dignity, and make sure that their constitutional and statutory rights are protected. These pursuits in addition to the procedural safeguards that are statutorily and constitutionally provided are imperative if our criminal justice system is to perform as it should.

The 180

Alright, I think it is time for me to be honest with the readers of my blog with how I even came about writing about the injustice of plea bargaining. I could NOT think of any topic to write about for the blogs and I ran into a friend at the library, where I was stressing out because as usual I had waited till the last minute (yes, one hour before English) to narrow my topic down. Then he told me about how his sister was doing a project on the morality of plea bargaining at her high school. I nodded my head, agreeing with every word he was saying, while secretly thinking to myself “What the heck is plea bargaining?” I will admit I knew a little bit about it, but all I knew was that it helped out the defendant with sentencing as long as he/she gave more information about the case. So in other words, I knew the minimal of what I should. So why share this with you? Why am I admitting to the fact that I knew practically NOTHING about this process…to prove to you what I HAVE learned.

Throughout this entire blogging session I have been accusing the United States Justice System of injustice. Boy was I wrong. I had been reading source after source bashing the legal system for the incorrect justice that was being served because of checks and balances. “The prosecutor holds all the power!” was the main theme of most of the articles. But when writing my analysis post I knew I had to write an unbiased one…what a TASK! So I called up a family friend…last minute of course… to see if he could lead me in the right direction of possible sources for pro-plea bargaining. Robert J. Conrad, Jr. was the man I called. Why is he important? He has served as a defense attorney, a U.S. district attorney, and now he is a federal judge. What angle had he not hit, besides being a defendant of course! I went into the conversation bold and full of biased and in leaving I felt extremely enlightened. All I can say is WHAT AN ATTORNEY! He listened to every point I had to say about the anti-views of plea bargaining and in the end he opened my eyes to the one thing I was failing to recognize, the plea of guilt. I would love to write word for word what he said to me about the plea bargaining system…so I did…after the phone conversation I sent him an interview via e-mail, which he so graciously responded to. I found it so intriguing I had to put it on my blog and of course use him as a source!!

So okay, what did I learn through all of this? I found blogging to be just like our justice system. It was a long and tedious process, it might take days to get a point across, just like it might take months to get your fair and just trial, but at the end of the day if you were willing to wait for the RIGHT and JUST verdict you would receive it. The plea bargaining process is not meant to fool anyone within the system, only if we try and fool it do we get the unjust punishment. Just as the Constitution has made amendments over time, the prosecutors use their discretion to alter sentencing in hopes of getting more leads, in hopes of benefiting the society. We are the voters; we are the ones who decide who these people of justice are to make the judgment calls. If we do not do our research, we will be fooling ourselves into getting an unjust system. In short, if I had not done my research, I would be living with an unjust decision.

4. Analysis - Not Fully Violent: The Moral Rift Between Animal and Human

Coexistence is a violent misfortune, at least for those animals in urban areas today. Labeled as what we call pets, many animals are cuddled, fed and loved. However, many of these urban animals are hidden, and subjected to the cruelness of human domination as displayed Castro's - a man who kicked a puppy to death simply because he could not stand its yelping. Many of these crimes inflict so much suffering to the animal that they are often too gruesome to fathom, producing crime scenes comparable to that of a homicide. Yet, it is interesting to note how America's justice system treats cases of animal torture and death differently from the murdering of human beings.

From a simply research, I have looked at numerous sentences of violence and have noticed that abusive killings of animals always tend to 'deserve' a lighter punishment then manslaughter. For example, Jessie O'Neal and Rashawn Gill both received a 5 year probation and $2, 500 fine for involvement in dog fighting entertainment. An extremely lenient punishment when compared to Faisal Razzaq and his brother Hassan Razzaq who were charged for 11 years and 20 years respectively for manslaughter. Again, three boys who stole their neighbors dog, repeatedly flung it out of a second story window, broke its legs, hung, beat it like a pinata, decapitated it and finally showing no sign of remorse, could face a charge of only 3 years imprisonment. While a man with a "psychopathic personality disorder" was jailed for life after killing a stranger by stabbing her in the neck with a broken bottle. Comparing these examples, it seems disturbing to notice how the punishments for similarly violent acts, depend so greatly on who is the victim!

As mentioned in my earlier postings, such widely accepted discrepancy in punishments is most likely due to historical and social developments in moral reasoning. Historical and social factors have normalized the view that violence inflicted upon animals is not comparable to the violence inflicted upon another human. For instance, the understanding that human civilization originated from tribes of hunters and gatherers attempt to justify hunting for sport as an important component of culture, arguing that the killing of animals for fun is not a crime because that was how we survived in the past. Biblical writings and Christian writers have all endorsed the idea that man is made superior to other planetary creatures, unintentionally justifying the abuse of animals for entertainment and sport. In the past, Romans had long grown accustomed to regarding creatures of lowly status... without reason or rights, as legitimate objects of violence. In recent history, the Nazi army justified the massacre of 5, 933, 900 Jews because they classified them as not fully human. At this point, I would like to argue that no matter how normal the view - that we are different from nature - is, and how ingrained it is in American society and her judicial law, they should not at all be immune to change. By looking at history, we will see that they are founded upon ever changing moral reasonings. Our past moral philosophies have led to the normalization of anthropocentric views today, ultimately making us believe that there should be relatively lighter punishment for the crime of animal abuse as compared to manslaughter.

Another reason why I think punishments differ depending on whether the victim is an animal or a human, is likely due to the different level of deterrence desired by the courts. Maintaining the socially constructed divide between animal and human species is a natural way of preserving one's species from self-destruction. In other words, providing a heavier punishment for killing a human is a means of deterring the killing of one's own species, thus preserving human society.

Yet, no matter how one argues for such a variation in the two mentioned crimes, one cannot deny that both crimes share very similar levels of violence and motives - such as the desire to attain pleasure from domination of weaker subjects. A blogger writes about Michael Vic's crime: “The methods of killing these poor dogs seem to have been selected to inflict the most pain and distress possible.” As explained in my implications post, Dale Bartlett mentioned that, “[a]nimal cruelty rarely occurs in a vacuum”, and hence should not be looked upon lightly. If such mentality is not clammed down in animal abuse crimes, the violence graduate hypothesis predicts that animal abusers are expected to work their way up from harming animals to harming people.

I strongly believe that one should be judged on the nature of his crime (the means) and not by the outcome or to whom (the ends) he/she harms. The human brain is a complex and ever-learning entity, and if it's harmful appetites are not guided using significant punishments, it will continue searching for more intense acts to satisfy its growing urge. Furthermore, if our punishments reflect what our society values, then aren't we sending out the ambiguous signals? Because by observing trends found in the punishments given, while one can easily deduce that humans are valued more then animals, one can also make the twisted assumption that violence is more acceptable when inflicted upon animals then when inflicted upon humans. Similar to the issue of abortion, if we do not pin down and enforce a clear definition to violence, we will never be able to rid it from society.

Just like how our moral judgments have changed in the past, our decisions on the severity of punishments sentenced on animal abusers today can change too. And they should, if we want to be the noble stewards of animals we envision ourselves to be, as well as to ensure safer human societies for our children to grow up in! Let us first begin with criticizing our judicial laws, that possess the potential to be so effective, but today sadly fail to be so due to fundamental contradictions and leniency.

Growing through Blogging: Self Analysis

I think writing this blog has really shed light on a new form of writing and communication, and has taught me to make my argumentative writing more logic based. Writing for a blog and having people comment on my ideas, as I formed them is something new and required additional planning from my part. I liked the comments because usually I'm unsure if I'm going in the right direction but Yeo!!! really helped me out. As I continued to study and form opinions about racial disparities in the criminal justice system, I began to understand that the court system like most things has room for error. This supports the name of our blog "grayjustice."I think I have broadened my views, and I have opened my mind to the other side of this debate and am now pro death penalty. Before undergoing this blog, I was very close-minded and had given up on this issue and felt that it had been reduced to dealing more with political issues than human rights.
In the case of racism in the criminal justice system, I am no longer sure whether black people are treated unfairly, and I don't know if this is still an issue when dealing with the death penalty. I took a side, and tried to stick with it, but it became harder and harder. I have found that DNA evidence and sophisticated gathering of evidence reduces most of the margin of error. Now that our society embraces this technology when deciding if someone is guilty of murder and should die, I think that its fair. I have found that most people sentenced to death aren't so innocent and that we shouldn't protect them, and could have never come to this conclusion without over researching for this topic on the death penalty. Though I discarded most of these sites, I read through all of them and then formed my opinion, with both sides layed out in front of me. This is what I feel education is all about, having substance behind what you believe, but always keeping an open mind. I think some of the exploratory articles I found towards the end of my journey hint that the world is changing, and maybe I will too. But not without strong credible sources and a good understanding of the issues thanks to my experience blogging with my fellow classmates. THANK YOU GUYS!

A Change For the Better

While going through this blog, I think I have really been exposed to a new form of writing and communication, all while being exposed to researching and focusing on a new topic. As I continued to study and form opinions about socioeconomic status in relation to criminal sentencing, I began to understand more what our court system is truly like. I think I have broadened my views, and I have opened my mind to more possibilities for reform. Before undergoing this project, I hadn’t thought about this issue very much, and I felt kind of uninformed and close minded, but now I am able to think more for myself and understand the issues which are prevalent today.
In the case of socioeconomic status versus criminal sentencing, I still think there is a great bias taking place. While many people argue that there is little evidence to prove this, results don’t always come from statistics. Just by looking at the court room and the results based on certain social factors, it’s easy to see how much of an issue this is.
I feel relieved to complete this area of focus, ending my topic of discussion on socioeconomic factors in criminal sentencing, but at the same time, I feel priviledged to have this experience. I was able to branch out of my normal routine, expose an issue which I learned much about, and interact with other people sharing or opposing my ideas. While this issue still isn't resolved, I am glad to have at least shed some light on this problem of today's court system, and learn more about it myself. It has begun my effort to start a life of my own thoughts and ideas, inspiring me to take a stand for what I believe in. This blog may be over for me today, but the striving toward justice will still prevail.

A Journey Through Blogging: Analysis

The nature of the different parts of racism towards blacks in America is complicated as is the relationship between the parts.Even the term "black" people is relatively new and some might feel that African-American is more appropriate, which I now agree with the latter term. The term African-American is more "politically correct." No matter what you refer to these people as, the point is that they are sentenced to the death penally at statistically disproportional rate.
For inspiration I looked to quotes from the late Martin Luther King Jr. His injustice quote, was the one I found that stood most relevant. Martin Luther King Jr. saw these problems first hand during the civil rights movement, a time when racial tension was at its highest. Content towards African-Americans then, and throughout history, is the root of this problem.
I then had to address the distinction between racism being a social issue and not a biological issue. A social issue is created by society. This social injustice was addressed by one of my colleagues, kelly , in her blog.
The McCleskey v. Kemp case provides substantial evidence to support my case that African-Americans are treated unfairly. The "raw numbers" were collected by Professor Baldus for his article entitled "Equal Justice and the Death Penalty." "The Baldus Study" indicate that defendants charged with killing white persons received the death penalty in 11% of the cases, but defendants charged with killing blacks received the death penalty in only 1% of the cases. Baldus also noted that "the raw numbers also indicate a reverse racial disparity according to the race of the defendant: 4% of the black defendants received the death penalty, as opposed to 7% of the white defendants." These statistics provided support for my position.
After reading about these studies I looked into any measures that would resolve these issues, in order to see this issue with more unbiasedness, and maybe see this issue in a different light. DNA testing is believed by many to eliminate any claims to racism in death penalty cases. DNA evidence is very accurate and sophisticated crime scene analysis provide clear information. This seemed like a viable answer, but does DNA evidence protect against racial bias any better?
Then I realized, the real unanswered what rights are we protecting in the first place? What specific constituional rights were these courts in volation of? I saw that it was the 14th amendment that entitled all people to have "equal protection under the law."
I stumbled on the "Racial Justice Act" and before the McCeskey v Kemp case and after it. This act was proposed as the "Racial Justice Act of 1990" before, but not until a similar case came up in Kentucky did the Georgia ruling in the McCeskey V Kemp case change. This act supported my view, and felt that it protected
against racial bias.
This isn't to say that racial bias is the only problem with the death penalty. There is the differences in the support of the death penalty by different races, or Why White People Support the Death Penalty?do. Imran points out that there are other elements, such as economic and social status, that are involved. He also notes the injustices that we watched in the documentary film Paradise Lost: the Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. This proves that theres all kinds of problems with the death penalty, and that racial issues are just a specific issue.Without socioeconomic problems, what many feel was the West Memphis 3 mistrial, could not have happened.

The overall process in researching for this blog involved learning about different analysis on racial disparities in legal cases, and then putting the parts together to form a thesis..I feel that race in criminal justice system should be further studied because there should be more information made available on this topic. Some interesting research is being made that suggests that one day the death penalty will be abolished.