Equal Protection in Criminal Punishment

match Protection in crook Punish handst The 14th Amendment articulates that no adduce sh alone sweep to any soul within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the justnesss (Sullivan and Gunther 486). It is nearly impossible though, for the equal treatment of tout ensemble soulfulnesss, since every law affects people differently. This com musical compositiond bear non liter whollyy 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 non others (Sullivan and Gunther 486).The equal 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 ar mainly minorities and those from low socio-economic groups. The dissimilarity in sentencings of the malefactors is often the focal point of statutory discussion. The most debatable t opic when it comes to criminal punishment is the argona surrounding the end penalty. It is often given up unjustly and undeservingly to minorities.Race is the most controversial and monumental factor in determining the length and severity of a criminals punishment. Racial discrimination has been evident in our legal arranging in the yesteryear and continues to remain present to this day. Our court system has deprived minorities of their rights throughout the years. In Strauder v. West Virginia, the State excluded blacks from the dialog box. The State law stated that all white male persons who atomic number 18 twenty-one years of age and who argon citizens of this State shall be liable to serve as jurors (Sullivan and Gunther 487).A black man facing trial in the 1800s against an all white jury doesnt stand a chance. The Court found that to deny citizen participation in the administration of justice solely on racial grounds is practically a brand upon them, affixed by law an ass ertion of their inferiority, and a stimulant to that speed prejudice which is an chip to securing to individuals of the consort that equal justice which the law aims to secure to all others (Sullivan and Gunther 487). This case was a major act point in racial discrimination in our legal system.Minorities were starting to be seen as people, and not just objects. But at this succession, we were still far from our goal of total equality among all people. In a to a greater extent recent case, Swain v. Alabama, the Court held that a suspect 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 delegacy applied different jury selection standards as between blacks and whites (Swain v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 209, 1965). There may not be evidence, but it is quite obvious that there is an inequality here.How can a man facing a death penalty be put up against an all wh ite jury during a epoch of racial tension? A flawed system of selection of jury panels is not comparable to think 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 principle 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 feel been purpose in full excluded, was reaffirmed in Batson v.Kentucky (Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 84). The check 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 inaccurate assumption that members of his race as a group are not eligible to serve as jurors. By denying a person participation in jury duty on the basis of his race, the State likewise unconstitutionally discriminates against the prohibit juror (Batson v. Ken tucky, 476 U. S. 85). This inequality in the selection of jurors has damaged self-reliance in our legal system.The lack of confidence has in turn caused inequality in the sentencing of criminals, mostly dealing with minorities. There is no doubt that minorities have got harsher and longer sentences. As of June 1998, lonesome(prenominal) seven white men had been executed in the United States for violent death black victims. In the same 1976-1998 period, 115 black men were executed for killing white victims (Cole 132). These numbers prove that blacks have historically have harsher treatments than whites. This connects to the selection of juries. Juries have a great affect on the sentencing of criminals.A preponderantly white jury is to a greater extent than promising to convict a black man, than a predominantly black jury is. Juries remain predominantly white in most of the country, and apparently their sympathies lie more strongly with white than black victims (Cole 133). A r angy 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 times more often than defendants charged with killing black victims (Cole 133).The Equal Protection Clause was set out to protect from this indifference, but this clearly shows that it has not done 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 check cocain and powder cocaine is too big.Under federal sentencing guidelines, a wee-time blemish head teacher caught selling 5 grams of dampen receives the same prison house sent ence as a large-scale powder 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 higher value on the danger take of crack, when in all actuality they are 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 conviction rate is much more in their favor. An offender would receive a mandatory minimum of 10 years if they were to get caught with 5,000 grams of powdered cocaine, while a person woul d 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 beginning(a)-time possession offense. A person convicted in federal court of simple possession of 5 grams of crack is subject to a mandatory five-year prison term while a person convicted of possessing 5 grams of powder will probably receive a probation sentence. To solve 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 cheap price, which for the first time make cocaine purchasable to a wider economic class (thesentencingproject. rg). More than often, the biggest users of crack cocaine are people of lower well-disposed status. This in turn implicates that more crack cocaine users are African Americans. As a number 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 share 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 absolute majority of crack offenders are white or Hispanic (The Sentencing Project).With the punishment of crack cocaine so impish for low level offenses, the prison incarceration rate has risen, causi ng us as taxpayers more money. American prisons and jails house nearly two million people and Blacks face incarceration rates more than half-dozen 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 exists in the sentencing of the death penalty. There seems to be a consistent 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 against white victims (Bright 433). everyplace time, our legal system has placed a small value of importance on minorities and this wa s built upon, to where whites did not notice 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 view could be the fact that most 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 exclusively white (Free 187). White prosecutors may not knowingly have a racial bias in their head, but it is evident when they are try 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). While the state prosecutors are pressing for the death penalty, the defendant is supplied with an insufficient lawyer. The jury is more than likely to listen to the more qualified state prosecutor and be p ersuaded by what he has to say, over the downstairs 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 ever so 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 have made little progress towards total equality. Anywhere you look in todays world, you can sense some sort of inequality or injustice. I firmly b elieve 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. deeds 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 Jr. , Marvin D. Racial Issues in Criminal nicety 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 Neutral PoliciesPaper presented at the annual conflict of the The Law and Society Association, Jul 06, 2006. ttp //www. allacademic. com/meta/p94999_index. html Sentencing disparity Crack Cocaine v Powdered Cocaine. The Defenders Online. 27 may 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 Foundation Press, 2007. The Sentencing Project Research and protagonism for Reform. Federal Crack Cocaine Sentencing. 13 December 2009. http//www. sentencingproject. org/doc/publications/dp_crack_sentencing. pdf