Jury Selection Dbq Essay

The defense argued that the peremptory strikes were based off of race. Snyder appealed to the Supreme Court of Louisiana, which found that the judge did not act unreasonably in dismissing the case as a Batson violation. This case parallels the case at hand. The prosecutor used their peremptory strikes to remove the black jurors for pretext reasons, not justifiable ones. In Foster’s case, the court used reasons such as the jurors being too close in age to the defendant, Foster, to strike a prospective juror.

Emmet till was murdered by Roy Bryant and his half-brother J. W. Milam. While visiting relatives in Mississippi Emmet supposedly flirted with a store cashier. This cashier was a white woman, and in the 1950’s African Americans where looked down on by white people. Emmet was kidnapped and took far away where he was beat then shot by Roy Bryant and his half-brother. They were put on trial but it was an all-white jury so no one was convicted.

1) On August 28, 1986, a woman named Queen Madge White was found dead in her home in Rome, Georgia. She was a 79-year-old widow and was found to be beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death. Her home had also been burglarized. Timothy Foster, an 18-year-old black male, confessed to the crime and officers recovered some of the stolen items from Foster’s home. The State subsequently indicted him for malice, murder, and burglary and the jury that was selected convicted him of capital murder and assigned the death penalty.

This document is from the dissent of Mr. Justice Harlan in the Plessy v. Ferguson trial decided on May 18, 1896. His audience is the assenting Justices, and any citizen of the United States that reads the decision handed down by the court. Justice Harlan wrote his Dissent to the case to establish that the assenting judges were amiss in their decision to uphold the Louisiana Separate Car Act. Justice Harlan believes that the decision of the court is wrong on the basis that, if read as purported the U.S. Constitution has no caste, and is therefore color blind. He says “the white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country.

The law doesn't care what your skin looks like. They law is there to be a fair way to help and guide people and in the situation Harlan believes they interpreted the law wrong. While Harlan believed that the law doesn't care what color you are another justice who voted against Plessy , Henry Brown believe that no laws were violated. He believed that racial differences didn't violate anything in the Constitution as long as both of the places were “separate but equal”. The phrase separate but equal keeps coming up, but back then when people still thought whites were superior were things really equal?

The jury system originated in England hundreds of years ago. The colonists brought the jury system from England to the United States. In 1733, John Zenger, a printer, printed a newspaper critical for the British Government. His attorney convinced the jury to be in favor for Zenger because his criticisms were true. After this trial, it gave ordinary citizens the freedom of speech and the power to go against the king.

Is the American Jury System still a Good Idea? In the American Judicial System today, there is a choice between trial by jury or bench trial. Trial by jury is used today by selecting jurors from pools of people who are eligible, adult American citizens. Trial by jury is often controversial because of how the jurors are not professionals whereas in a bench trial, a judge is highly educated in law (Doc B).

Over the years, a plethora of court cases have caused Americans to wonder: is our jury system indeed as wondrous as it is conceived to be? To explain, the jury system is the concept of giving the defendant in a trial the option of either having a bench trial, one where a judge alone reaches a verdict, or a trial by jury, one where a group of twelve ordinary citizens is chosen to reach a verdict on the case. One may wonder why a dozen everyday denizens are being endowed with the absolute power over a possibly life or death decision in the life of a neighbor that is unknown to them, but the framers of the United States Constitution believed that this was the most democratic option in making sure that justice is properly served. Explaining further,

In “The Jury of Her Peers”, the author Susan Glaspell aims to defy traditional gender dynamics to expose the societal norms that were prevalent in the early 20th century. In the story, she skillfully employs literary elements such as setting, narrative perspective, characterization, and theme to subvert inequitable notions and shed light on the profound injustices women faced at that time, allowing readers to fully comprehend the impact of such constraints on the women’s lives. The setting of “The Jury of Her Peers” plays a crucial role in enhancing the story’s themes and serves as a reflection of broader societal constraints and established traditions that were prevalent during the early 20th century. Glaspell sets the stage right from the

For nearly a century, the United States was occupied by the racial segregation of black and white people. The constitutionality of this “separation of humans into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life” had not been decided until a deliberate provocation to the law was made. The goal of this test was to have a mulatto, someone of mixed blood, defy the segregated train car law and raise a dispute on the fairness of being categorized as colored or not. This test went down in history as Plessy v. Ferguson, a planned challenge to the law during a period ruled by Jim Crow laws and the idea of “separate but equal” without equality for African Americans. This challenge forced the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of segregation, and in result of the case, caused the nation to have split opinions of support and

That made it difficult for African Americans to vote also the Ku Klux Klan was a danger for African Americans because of so many lynches that happened in the south to discouraged voters. Then “from the late 1870s onward, southern legislatures passed a series of laws requiring the separation of whites from “persons of color” on public transportation, in schools, parks, restaurants, theaters, and other locations” (Costly) known as the Jim Crow laws. The case Plessy v. Ferguson was based in Louisiana where an incident happened when an African-American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car, breaking a Louisiana law. This case went up to the Supreme Court because of the law that was broken and it became a significant to African Americans where stood under the law. The Supreme Court argued that Plessy was treated equal there was no Constitution veiled but he broke the law by not sitting where he didn’t belong.

“The boy is five feet eight inches tall. His father was six feet two inches tall. That’s a difference of six inches. It’s a very awkward thing to stab down into the chest of someone who’s half a foot taller than you are. ”-(Juror two, 54)

A man sits upon the stand as he hopes for the jury to plead him not guilty. The American Jury System has been in the United States Judicial Branch for over 385 years. The basis of a bench trial is that there is only a Judge that decides whether the accused is guilty or not guilty. Whereas on a jury trial the fate of the accused is proposed to the jury and they would decide whether he is guilty or not guilty. The jury trials provide fairness, it represents citizenship, and there is less of a bias than that of a bench trial.

In the book Atticus and the members of the court system express the reach of prejudice, justice, and fairness in the justice system. The justice system was filled with prejudice. In the book it states, “ Now don 't you be so confident, Mr. Jem I ain 't ever seen a jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man…”(279). Reverend Sykes is witnessing the trial of Tom Robinson.

Judicial selection is an intriguing topic as there are multiple ways that judges take their seat on the bench. The United States Constitution spells out how federal judges are selected and leaves it up to the individual states to establish their means for selecting judges. In federal courts, judges are appointed and it varies between appointment and election for state courts. The purpose of this paper is to examine the differences between appointments and elections (as well as the multiple types of elections) and to give an opinion as to which is the better alternative. Federal judges are appointed by the President of the United States and are confirmed on the advice and consent of the United States Senate.