American Justice System. Essay

The American justice system is one of the greatest aspects of the U.S. Constitution. The judicial branch insures that anyone in America receives a fair trial, that a nobody is incarcerated without due process and significant evidence, it assumes innocents until proven guilt, and protects the rights of citizens, victims, and the accused. The American justice system works most of the time, in that criminals normally go to jail while innocent people are set free; however, every system has its faults. Foremost, there is much debate over the concept of “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Many argue that courts do not always prove guilt or innocence, as in many people who are guilty of their crimes are not convicted because there was not enough evidence. The concept of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ is subjective and left up to the standards of the jurors. In today’s society, if a case does not have physical evidence, but strong circumstantial evidence and eyewitness accounts (evidence that was often deemed enough to convict several decades ago), the jury still may not convict because they have the idea that their should be some type of physical evidence for the person to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Often times, the idea of true guilt is lost in trying to prove ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ Another common issue within the judicial system are plea bargains. The vast majority of criminals never appear before a court of their peers. Often times the state will offer the accused a plea bargain in which the accused will plead guilty without going to court in exchange for a lesser sentence. Frequently, the severity of charges are lessened or dropped in order to justify the shorter sentence. The purpose of doing this is to save time and money for the state as court proceedings can be very expensive. The unfortunate aspect to this is that many accused are never found guilty of their entire crime because they are offered a plea bargain in which they except a lesser charge. On the other hand, may innocent people take the plea bargain under duress as they are afraid of going to court and being found guilty of a worse crime. Lastly, while much has been done to lessen the effects of discrimination and prejudice in the judicial system, jurors’ preconceived ideas based on race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc still effect many guilty verdicts. There is a disproportionate number of male blacks who are convicted of their crimes than wealthy Caucasians. In part this is due to race, gender, and the preconceived ideas that follow; but, also because wealthy people are able to arm themselves with a experienced defense team, while those who cannot afford to hire a lawyer are given a public defender. Public defenders are often overloaded with cases and are notoriously poor lawyers. It appears then that many are not receiving a fair trial if much of the decision depends on the skill of the lawyer rather than pure evidence. While the American justice system has its flaws, when considering what the American justice system has been able to accomplish for anyone living in America it is still one of the greatest contributions of the Constitution to modern day society. The issue of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, plea bargains, and discrimination are aspects of the system that can be amended with time; however, considering that this system has to serve everyone in the country there is no perfect solution.