Essay on Reforming the American Criminal Justice System: An Indictment from the Legal Academy

Introduction

The American criminal justice system has been a center of much critical analysis with many critics calling for its complete overhaul beside abolishment of its many current practices, claiming that the system is laden with many flaws at nearly every stage of the adjudicatory process and that it lacked fair treatment of the accused especially in the minority or least fortunate groups. This indictment leveled by the legal academy and other commentators is aimed at placing little or no faith in the criminal justice system, which they claim is compromised and, in the end, have by their harsh tone been unfair and unjust to the system of criminal justice itself. Many cite discrimination in terms of race and social status as one of the causes of unfair rulings in court proceedings and trials, and most defendants do not get justice as required by law. There have been many cases of misconduct by the legal fraternity, and wrongful convictions of innocent people have been on the rise.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Assessment of the American Criminal Justice System

The system may have its share of flaws, and in pursuit of perfection; I feel that the critics have overshadowed the good that is in the system even as their contribution is of value too. There is a need for a balanced view of the criminal justice system, which has provided considerable protection for the accused and, at the same time, set proper limits about brutality and deceit that human beings can put on one another, between competing rights and values.

The democratic features of the system are worthy of praise and respect in terms of the role played by the petit jury, which is the primacy of the legislature in defining crimes and punishment, and selection of court judges which allows participation from the electorate. The front-end features of the system also allow early processes and early resolution of cases, which is very important in getting cases to be solved early and fast. One cannot also ignore the value in the practice of plea bargaining, prosecutorial discretion, and representation of accused persons in the American justice system, which deserves to be appreciated.

The American justice system is fair and just as it ensures that many of the contestable choices are not imposed by elites but are made rather democratically. The imperative of wrongful convictions that often arise include mistaken eyewitness identification and unreliable confessions, and the need to enhance accuracy and reliable evidence is necessary to protect public safety and punishment for criminals. Improvements are needed in identifying suspects in blind lineups instead of cumbersome pretrial hearings and the relevant evidence included (Wilkinson III, 2014). In addition, there are also instances where police drop an investigation, plea negotiations reaching a sensible resolution, prosecutors wisely refuse to prosecute, and criminals are rightly brought to justice. All these bring out the good side of our criminal justice system that ensures the balance between law and justice in society. Lots of efforts are put in by the law-enforcement agencies, the legislatures, and the criminal defense bar to ensure justice for the accused through plea bargaining, prosecutorial discretion, and the constitutional right to counsel. The criminal justice system is powerless to correct the quality of the defense counsel, which has a direct effect on it as it is either generally poor or responsible for the negative outlook of the criminal justice system. But this cannot be used to undermine its ability to reform itself. The criminal justice system also applies the Peremptory Strikes7 in which both prosecutors and defense attorneys have the right to remove a certain number of people from the jury pool of a criminal case taking into consideration elimination of discrimination in race, gender or any other socio-economic issues affecting individuals. The blame cannot, therefore, be entirely put on judges and the system where there is misrepresentation, misconduct, or wrongful convictions as these are sometimes inevitable.

Indigent Criminal Defense

Wilkinson states, "I do not deny that the preceding indictment of indigent criminal defense contains some truth, but I part company with the critics insofar as they perceive a systemic problem of constitutional proportions. Their most elementary error is to equate any correlation between defective representation and wrongful convictions with a causal relationship between the two" (Wilkinson III, 2014). Indigent defense is set to provide legal services to defendants who cannot afford legal counsel privately because of low incomes to ensure a fair trial for the defendant. There are three forms of indigent defense, which are assigned council, contractual agreements, and public defender.

Lack of resources, time, and a viable defense for trial means that almost 80 to 90% of the cases plea out. The gap between the need for service and the service available often result in systematic discrimination and inequalities based on race, income, and social status. The poor are denied justice while the system incurs extra costs like jail expenses, lawsuits, retrials, and in the end, lack of confidence by the public. Wrongful convictions, especially of the poor, are increased as some lack counsel while others enter into a plea bargain to cut costs.

The Relationship between Defective Representation and Wrongful Convictions

The primary cause of the indigent defense crisis is inadequate funding at the state level. An example is 2016, where the state public defender's office in Missouri needed $23.1 million to represent indigent defendants, but the governor recommended only $1 million. He ended up being appointed as a public defender for him to understand the shortfall (Radley Balko, 2016). The lack of funds also means that many do get access to legal services in that only half of those eligible for and seeking legal aid get help. This can be seen in the case where Legal services Corporation programs aided 1.8 million Americans in 2013, whereas a similar number or more were turned away.

In the Gideon ruling, it was found that the poor needed counsel for a fair trial and the American Bar Association published a report, "Gideon's Broken Promise," which indicated that the poor who cannot hire a lawyer is at the risk of wrongful conviction and cannot be assured of a fair trial unless counsel is provided highlighting the lack of fundamental fairness in the indigent defense in the United States which is in a state of crisis.

Defendants also find themselves represented by unsupported, undertrained, or overloaded defense systems; prosecutors pushing for a plea bargain, courts failing to provide counsel and judges permitting or even soliciting deficient waivers of the right to counsel as well as exerting influence over defense counsel. The criminal justice system is overburdened and underfunded and suffers from a lack of accountability and oversight. There several reasons and factors that cause wrongful convictions, which include false confessions, invalidated forensic science reports, eyewitness misidentification, police and prosecutor misconduct, poor defense by lawyers, systematic racism, and bias, among others (Norris et al., 2019).

Looking at both issues that are related to the indigent defense system, I can only but agree with the statement as the two are related and its defective representation that has attributed to many wrongful convictions over time. If the poor and minority groups were effectively represented, then the chances of a wrongful conviction would below. Wrongful convictions that are discovered show that the system is not accurate in its convictions, and most of the time, it's not the one that finds these wrongful convictions. Still, it's often a persistent close relative, volunteer student, or some other source. Accuracy is critical in the proper functioning of the system and society, and reasonable efforts should be made, and policies formulated to ensure the integrity of the justice system is upheld.

Prosecutorial discretion

Prosecutorial discretion applies to when a prosecutor exercises his power to decide whether or not to charge a person for crime and which criminal charges to file. With the American court dockets congested and jails full, prosecutors must use discretion to plea bargain away most of their cases. This can result in the defendant pleading guilty to a lesser charge or pleading guilty to the original charge and receiving a lesser sentence (Alschuler, 2015). For example, when a police officer lets you go with a warning instead of charging you with speeding, this power is exercised, which is essential in doing justice. Justice requires fine-grained moral evaluations and distinctions in order to be effective and not just rules.

Given its broad nature, prosecutors many have varied reasons for using prosecutorial discretion. This includes a lack of evidence where a prosecutor has the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt any charges filed against a defendant. They can recommend high or low sentences, offer deals in exchange for cooperation against other defendants, diversion to drug treatment, among others as per sentencing law. Circumstances surrounding a crime can warrant a prosecutor to not file charges, offer a plea bargain or drop charges. In the case of self-defense cases that end up in murder, the prosecutor may drop charges or reduce from murder to manslaughter (Levine, 2016).

Advantages of Prosecutorial Discretion

Prosecutorial discretion promotes judicial economy by easing the burden on courts and judges through their ability to plea bargain as well as deciding when to charge a defendant. Through plea bargaining where they can offer reduced charges in exchange for testimony against another defendant, the cooperation of witness defendants is secured, and the maximum sentence can be given to those deserving higher sentences. An example is in the case where to get a low-level drug offender to testify against a serious drug dealer, and a prosecutor may offer him probation instead of facing a jail term.

Disadvantages of Prosecutorial Discretion

High chances of prosecutorial misconduct may be witnessed in cases of selective prosecution. This can occur when the file charges based on a defendant's race, income, or social status based on his personal beliefs and biases. Selective prosecution is a violation of individual constitutional rights and a huge problem facing the criminal justice system. If the defendant can prove that the prosecutor's policy was motivated by a discriminatory purpose and effect by showing similarly situated individuals of a different class, and race were not prosecuted for the same or similar crime. The prosecutor may argue that he had reason to warrant prosecution based on certain unique facts (Alkon, 2016).

Prosecutors need to use their discretion consistently and by a public sense of justice, which can be done by creating structures and incentives within the prosecutor's office and a culture to be followed to promote justice. Prosecutorial discretion is considered bad when it's unaccountable and idiosyncratic and their decisions biased, inconsistent, and lacks moral sense due to agency costs. Agency costs push prosecutors to use their discretion in coercion for pleas and bargain and threaten those who refuse to cooperate with severer punishments. Prosecutors need to be free to exercise discretion, which calls for means of counteracting these agency costs. Prosecutors should be encouraged to develop patterns and habits and provide justification in case of deviations.

The concept of Plea Bargaining

Plea bargaining involves having an agreement between a prosecutor and a defendant where the defendant pleads either no cont...