Equal Protection in Criminal Punishment

pair tribute in turn Punish ment The 14th Amendment articulates that no State sh altogether deny to any psyche at bottom its jurisdiction the be protection of the rightfulnesss (Sullivan and Gunther 486). It is nearly impossible though, for the embody intercession of totally persons, since both law affects people differently. This command give notice non literally require equal treatment of all persons, since almost all laws classify in some way, by imposing burdens on or granting benefits to some people and not others (Sullivan and Gunther 486).The jibe Protection Clause was meant for the application of all laws equally, not necessarily equal treatment of all people. There is a great difference in the two. The people most adversely affected by these iniquitous laws be mainly minorities and those from low socio- economic groups. The in equality in sentencings of the criminals is often the focal gratuity of effective discussion. The most debatable topic when it comes to criminal punishment is the plain surrounding the death penalty. It is often given un skilfully and undeservingly to minorities.Race is the most debatable and monumental factor in determining the length and severity of a criminals punishment. Racial favouritism has been evident in our intelligent agreement of rules in the past and continues to remain present to this day. Our court system has deprived minorities of their rights through fall out the historic period. In Strauder v. West Virginia, the State excluded gloomys from the board. The State law countryd that all gaberdine male persons who ar twenty-one years of age and who atomic number 18 citizens of this State shall be liable to serve as jurors (Sullivan and Gunther 487).A melanise man facing streamlet in the 1800s against an all innocence dialog box doesnt stand a chance. The approach order that to deny citizen booking in the administration of justice solely on racial grounds is practically a brand upon them, affixed by law an assertion of their inferiority, and a stimulant to that rush along mischief which is an check-out procedure to securing to individuals of the race that equal justice which the law aims to secure to all others (Sullivan and Gunther 487). This encase was a major runging point in racial discrimination in our legal system.Minorities were starting to be seen as people, and not just objects. But at this time, we were still far from our goal of total equality among all people. In a to a great extent(prenominal) recent case, Swain v. Alabama, the Court held that a defendant in a criminal case is not constitutionally allowed to a balanced number of his race on the trial jury or the jury panel. There is no evidence in this case that the jury selection committee applied different jury selection standards as between unrelentings and lily-white-hots (Swain v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 209, 1965). There may not be evidence, but it is quite obvious that there is an div ersity here.How crumb a man facing a death penalty be regurgitate up against an all white jury during a time of racial tension? A flawed system of selection of jury panels is not comparable to intended racial discrimination (Swain v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 209, 1965). Although the selection of an all white jury was not sought out, society during this time was racially divided. The prescript announced in Strauder v. West Virginia, that a State denies a black defendant equal protection when it puts him on trial before a jury from which members of his race bear been purposefully excluded, was reaffirmed in Batson v.Kentucky (Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 84). The Equal Protection Clause assures the defendant that the State will not prohibit members of his race from the jury venire on account of race, or on the imprecise assumption that members of his race as a group atomic number 18 not eligible to serve as jurors. By denying a person participation in jury duty on the basis of his ra ce, the State withal unconstitutionally discriminates against the barred juror (Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 85). This inequality in the selection of jurors has shamed confidence in our legal system.The lack of confidence has in turn caused inequality in the sentencing of criminals, mostly dealings with minorities. There is no suspect that minorities receive harsher and longer sentences. As of June 1998, lone(prenominal) seven white men had been executed in the United States for killing black victims. In the comparable 1976-1998 period, 115 black men were executed for killing white victims (Cole 132). These numbers game prove that blacks have historically received harsher treatments than whites. This connects to the selection of juries. Juries have a great affect on the sentencing of criminals.A predominantly white jury is more than probably to convict a black man, than a predominantly black jury is. Juries remain predominantly white in most of the country, and patently th eir sympathies lie more strongly with white than black victims (Cole 133). A bouffant study conducted by Professors David Baldus, George Woodworth, and Charles Pulaski, showed that there was a large disparity in the racial breakdown of the death penalty. They found that defendants charged with killing white victims received the death penalty eleven quantify more often than defendants charged with killing black victims (Cole 133).The Equal Protection Clause was constitute out to protect from this indifference, but this clearly shows that it has not through with(p) so. Equal treatment of all people has yet to be achieved today and racial inequality is still ever-present. Criminal sentencing when it comes to blacks and whites is vastly different and unjust. The disproportion of sentences given to blacks and whites in dealing with drugs is ridiculous. First of all, the gap in sentencing when it comes to fragmentize cocain and disintegrate cocain is besides big.Under federal sen tencing guidelines, a small-time checker bargainer caught selling 5 grams of crack receives the same prison house sentence as a large-scale pulverization cocaine dealer convicted of distributing 500 grams of powder cocaine (Cole 142). To me, powder cocaine is just as dangerous and addicting as crack cocaine. The large gap in sentencings for the two offenses places a high value on the danger level of crack, when in all veridicality they atomic number 18 on the same level. The increase in policing of the low-level crack offenders has caused us to neglect the big drug traffickers.As it is, we already do not have enough federal law enforcement to police all the drug dealers out there. By paying more attention to the people with small amounts of crack cocaine, we are letting others get by with more powdered cocaine. This puts more powdered cocaine on the streets, because dealers are unafraid to receive the consequences since the pay-off to reliance rate is much more in their favor . An offender would receive a authorisation minimum of 10 years if they were to get caught with 5,000 grams of powdered cocaine, turn a person would receive the same sentence for being caught with only 50 grams of crack cocaine.Crack cocaine is the only drug that carries a mandatory prison sentence for a first-time possession offense. A person convicted in federal court of simple possession of 5 grams of crack is clear to a mandatory five-year prison term while a person convicted of possessing 5 grams of powder will probably receive a probation sentence. To make for this problem, we need to bridge the gap between the two sentencings. Crack cocaine is the poor mans powdered cocaine. The popularity of crack cocaine was associated with its twopenny price, which for the first time made cocaine available to a wider economic class (thesentencingproject. rg). More than often, the biggest users of crack cocaine are people of get down social status. This in turn implicates that more cr ack cocaine users are African Americans. As a result of this, blacks are receiving more prison time when it comes to crack cocaine. African Americans make up one-third of crack cocaine users, with the other two-thirds being white and Hispanic (The Defenders Online). About 90 portion of federal crack cocaine defendants are black (Cole 142). African American drug defendants have a 20 percent greater chance of being sentenced to prison than white drug defendants (The Sentencing Project).Why is this the case? The legal system inadvertently targets blacks by placing higher sentences on crack cocaine offenses. A considerable racial disparity in prosecutions and imprisonment has endured for too long. Along with disproportionate law enforcement procedures that aim towards blacks, the crack sentencing guidelines have resulted in more than 80 percent of crack cocaine defendants being African American, although in all actuality, a majority of crack offenders are white or Hispanic (The Senten cing Project).With the punishment of crack cocaine so staring(a) for low level offenses, the prison incarceration rate has risen, causing us as taxpayers more money. American prisons and jails house nearly two zillion people and Blacks face incarceration rates more than six times that of Whites (Schlesinger). The inequality in our justice system has caused more minorities to be locked up, which in result is a financial burden on the American taxpayers. By equalizing the gap in criminal sentencing for all races, we can solve the problems from within our legal system.The racial inequality that is present in our justice system also costs in the sentencing of the death penalty. There seems to be a accordant factor in those on death row. Those being executed and awaiting their deaths are no different from those selected for execution in the past virtually all were poor about half are members of racial minorities and the overwhelming majority where sentenced to death for crimes agains t white victims (Bright 433). Over time, our legal system has placed a small value of importance on minorities and this was built upon, to where whites did not chance upon this inequality.There has to be some sort of factor that influences why there are more minorities on death row. A possible influence on the situation could be the fact that most public prosecutors are white. 98 percent of all state death penalty state prosecutors are white and in eighteen of the thirty-eight death penalty states, prosecutors are merely white (Free 187). White prosecutors may not knowingly have a racial bias in their head, but it is evident when they are stressful to seek the death penalty. State courts were 4. 3 times more likely to sentence those who killed whites than those that killed blacks (Free 185).These same courts were 1. 1 times more likely to black defendants to death than any other defendant of another race (Free 185). maculation the state prosecutors are pressing for the death pen alty, the defendant is supplied with an insufficient lawyer. The jury is more than likely to listen to the more qualified state prosecutor and be persuaded by what he has to say, over the under qualified attorney supplied by the state. This has resulted in more successful cases in favor of the state prosecutors. This reoccurring situation is ever-so-present in todays legal system.Minorities are getting shafted in the American justice system and nothing is being done to prevent this from continuing to happen in the future. All men are created equal may be what the Declaration of Independence says, but in all reality, some men receive better treatment than others. The actual reality of the Declaration of Independence is that all free, white, landowning men are created equal. For that reason, inequality has perpetually been present in the United States legal system and maintains to exist today though, the inequality currently in the system is not as obvious as what it once was.We h ave made little come along towards total equality. Anywhere you look in todays world, you can find some sort of inequality or injustice. I heavily believe we will always have a racial prejudice in the world no matter what, because there will always be the people that cant get over their racial indifferences. Although we will not fully achieve the goal of racially equality, we can make positive steps forward by first addressing the problems associated with in our justice system. Race is the largest influencing factor in the sentencing of criminals, especially when it comes o dealing with the death penalty. Works Cited Bright, Stephen B. Discrimination, Death, and Denial The Tolerance of Racial Discrimination in Infliction of the Death Penalty. Santa Clara Law Review Vol. 35 (1995. ) 433. Free younger , Marvin D. Racial Issues in Criminal Justice the Case of African Americans. Westport Criminal Justice Press, 2004. 185,187. Schlesinger, Traci. How Determinate Sentencing Contributed to the Prison Boom The Failure of Race so-so(p) PoliciesPaper presented at the annual meeting of the The Law and Society Association, Jul 06, 2006. ttp//www. allacademic. com/meta/p94999_index. hypertext mark-up language Sentencing disparity Crack Cocaine v Powdered Cocaine. The Defenders Online. 27 whitethorn 2009. 16 Dec. 2009. http//www. thedefendersonline. com/2009/05/27/sentencing-disparity-crack-cocaine-v-powder-cocaine/ Sullivan, Kathleen M. and Gerald Gunther. Constitutional Law 16th Ed. New York establishment Press, 2007. The Sentencing Project Research and Advocacy for Reform. Federal Crack Cocaine Sentencing. 13 December 2009. http//www. sentencingproject. org/doc/publications/dp_crack_sentencing. pdf