Wrongful Convictions Are Present in All Types of Crimes

On, October 2, 1971, a young nurse dubbed as A.H was attacked in the Baton Rouge Hospital parking lot and forced to drive to a secluded area. She was then raped at gunpoint and detailed her attacker to police as five feet eight and above with a gap between his teeth.

One year later, another young woman was attacked in the parking lot of a hospital a few miles from Baton Rouge Hospital. She was also raped at gunpoint and detailed her attacker as being of the same height and having a gap between his teeth. Wilbert Jones, a 19-year-old boy was arrested for the rape of A.H, even though, according to A.H, Jones had a “rougher” voice and was much shorter compared to her attacker. Jones was released from jail after spending almost 45 years in prison.

In America, everyone is claiming to be equal according to the constitution. However, blacks are treated as low-class citizens, not only in life or work but also in the criminal justice system.

The current generation can change the fact that blacks serving jail time for sexual assault are 3.5 times more likely to be innocent than whites who have been convicted of sexual assault. It is time to bring light to the sad fact that of all races and ethnicities, African Americans face the most inequity and corruption in the criminal justice system, through exonerations, arrests, and sentencing disparities.

People in the criminal justice system claim that everyone is given a fair trial or is treated fairly and accurately by police, prosecutors and judges.

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However, wrongful convictions are a prominent recurrence throughout all types of crimes and blacks are somehow more prone to be victims of exonerations and wrongful convictions. An exoneration in simple terms is the clearing of someone from an accusation or in these cases from a conviction. In comparison to the total population of the United States, African Americans only represent thirteen percent, however, they represent 47% of the reported exonerations.

A different aspect of the justice system is sentencing, which is the number of years a defendant receives for his or her crime and within sentencing, there is an issue of sentencing disparity. Sentencing disparity is the unequal or unjust sentencing given to a suspect rather than following the exact guidelines of the law and has shown to be racially biased. Recent topics that are regularly debated by citizens is if law enforcement targets minorities, specifically black people more and most of the research done seems to lean towards yes. A study done by a federal agency details that though whites sell and use drugs at the same rate of blacks, blacks are arrested for drug crimes at twice the rate of whites. These are only a few of the issues blacks face in the criminal justice system and are more of the less publicized issues that plague the justice system.

When looked at over a span of ten years, it seems as if there have been numerous attempts to solve and eradicate these three issues but they still prevail years later. Before this act was passed, there was a large disparity in the sentencing for crack and cocaine charges. The ratio of the sentencing disparity between offenses for crack and cocaine powder was 100:1 meaning people charged for crack offenses would get much longer sentences than compared to those who have been charged for cocaine offenses. In 2010, the Fair Sentencing Act was passed by Congress and then President Obama, the act reduced the sentencing disparity of crack and cocaine offenses from the ratio of 100:1 to now 18:1. The Act was meant to decrease the disparity rate, but is still not fully equal to both sides and is still lighter towards people charged for cocaine offenses. North Carolina also enacted and passed an act in their state called the Racial Justice Act.

The act was provoked by cases that provide evidence that the death penalty was sought because of race and outlawed that practice. The act was later revoked from the legislature because of other political complications and arguments. Compared to the 1800s and the 1900s, the treatment of minorities in America has improved conditions. The infamous Plessy v. Ferguson case is a great indicator of how whites treated and viewed blacks in that late 19th century and early 20th-century era not only in society but also in the criminal justice system. The case went to the supreme court in 1896 and the verdict claimed that blacks and whites are allowed to be separate in public places like schools and bathrooms but that these places would be equal in quality.

Almost 60 years passed before that doctrine was overturned by the verdict of the supreme court case Brown vs. Board Of Education, a case that represents the beginning of the civil rights movement in the United States. Though it may seem hard to believe, the 19th and 20th century were both eras in which the justice system was racially discriminatory and biased. Jim Crow Laws passed by different state legislature. Though these laws were more directed towards segregation in public facilities like schools and public restrooms, trials of charge blacks would appear in front of those same judges and juries full of the same people who passed these laws. Ultimately meaning that these trials would most likely be racially biased and truly unfair. Progress has been made, but they are still too many indifferences and injustices faced by only minorities in the system and also in regular life in America.

It is difficult for one to believe that the justice system will actually bring forth and produce justice when there are so many cases of injustice, whether it may be an extreme sentencing disparity or a wrongful conviction. Wrongful convictions can put an innocent person in jail for years before that case is exonerated and the person is freed. Many of these arrests and convictions that are later exonerated usually occur through the misconduct procedures. This can cause a person to lose all hope and trust in the justice system. 210 years is the sentence the judge gave Marvin Anderson, an 18-year-old, who was being charged with sodomy, rape, abduction, and robbery.

Fifteen years passed before Anderson was let out of prison on parole, Anderson spent four years on parole before been pardoned by the Governor of Virginia in 2001. Anderson was arrested and convicted solely because he lived with a white woman and the real assailant told the victim that he “had a white girl.” This one phrase led the officer to suspect Anderson because Anderson was the only black man known to be living with a white woman, and then ruined and wasted 19 years of his life. Anderson was exonerated due to the newly available technique of DNA testing. December 14, 2017, was the day Richard Phillips was released from prison after spending 45 years in prison for a wrongful conviction of murder. Phillips was convicted even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, because of a false testimony given by the main suspect. A man named Fred Mitchell, the brother in law of the murdered victim, claimed that Phillips and another man named Richard Palombo were the killers.

Throughout the case and the trial, Mitchell’s testimony varied in the aspects of the murder weapon and situational details. In 2010, the other man convicted, Richard Palombo admitted that he and Mitchell actually committed the murder and that Phillips was not even there. Palombo claimed that he met Phillips for the first time eight days after the murder had occurred. Innocent people like Marvin Anderson and Richard Phillips should have not been convicted and received such punishment. However, the punishment is very necessary when a crime is committed but all punishment and sentencing for crimes should be fair and equal no matter the person’s racial or financial background. When comparing sentences  black and white men who were accused and convicted of the same crime, the conclusion produced was that black men receive sentences that are ten percent longer than the sentence given to their white counterparts. In 2011, Bernard Noble was charged with weed possession and then sentenced to 13 years in prison without the possibility of parole all because of two marijuana cigarettes.

Though legislation passed in 2015 details that possession of less than 14 grams of marijuana can be punished by a maximum sentence of eight years. Even with this new legislation being put in place, Noble was not paroled until 2018, after spending 8 years in prison. These stories deal with different problems that plague the criminal justice system, but all leave a lasting mental, emotional and even financial impacts on the individuals and their families. The years these men spent in a cell away from their families can never be given back to them.

With all the new reforms of current laws and blacks’ lives matter protests happening, one would think that sentencing disparity, exonerations and disproportional arrests would become less of an issue. However, recent cases have shown that these problems  seem to be more prevalent now than ever. Evidence shows that black and other minorities tend to make up a large percentage of arrests while they only represent a small portion of the total population of the United States. Blacks are only thirteen percent of the United States total population and yet account for 27 percent of individual arrests. These two statistics do not make much sense and have led many people to believe that blacks tend to be targeted more by the police. When dealing with drug convictions and sentences, it is known that selling or possessing drugs near or in school zones results in heavier punishment. Many school zones are situated in urban locations which usually contain a large population of minorities, the majority being African-American.

Indirectly African Americans and other minorities are being affected and targeted because of this zone. Even though this drug zone seems like it provides an explanation for the sentencing disparity in some cases, many cases occur outside of this zone in other neighborhoods or public places outside of the drug-free zone. Racism and stereotyping are both highly used and believed in all of the world not only the United States. While the treatment of blacks and other minorities is not as bad as it was during the time of MLK and the Jim Crow Era, blacks are still mistreated but not as directly or obviously. Blacks are randomly searched more than whites are which can sometimes explain  higher arrest rates. As well as being randomly searched more, blacks are also excluded from juries. Being excluded from juries can be a huge problem, especially in racially tense areas in which most of the jury would be white and go in with negative perceptions of blacks.

Many stereotypes portray black men as threatening us and violent, and black women as rude and aggressive. The seemingly foolish stereotypes when or if believed by people can play a role in how law enforcement and the criminal justice system deals with African Americans. Juries deliver verdicts and judges deliver sentences, which affect the rest of a person’s life. Both duties can be influenced heavily by stereotypes or are sometimes just the result of racism.

In the past, issues such as segregation and separate but equal have been brought forward and resolved through the justice system. If those issues were resolved, then there is no reason why these current issues cannot be resolved. The Fair Sentencing Act passed in 2010 but there are still thirteen states who do not follow or accept the passing of this act and continue to impose drastically different sentences for crack and cocaine offenses. Sentencing disparity in drug crimes could reduce nationwide if all fifty states accepted and enacted this act. Reduction of the drug-free zone to make it encompass more of the school grounds instead of the surrounding neighborhoods would be an effective change. Reducing the zone to mainly school grounds would shorten some sentences and make law enforcement and the justice system look less biased.

These three types of severe mistreatment can be prevented from happening if blacks are treated by criminal justice professionals with the same respect as whites and are also not affected by stereotyping. If blacks are able to receive true justice from the criminal justice system and are not the aftermaths of people abusing the system and avoiding true rules. The problems faced by blacks in the justice system is just the outcome of pure racism, but a new modern, less noticed form of racism in the United States. If the stigmas around black men would leave, there would not be racial bias in the system. It may look as if these issues are not necessarily problems that affect all Americans, but the United States was built on the principle of equality which means no one should be treated and handled differently because of a skin tone. The average American can help by doing something as little as avoiding stereotypes and disregarding and discrediting racial stigmas. Also advocating and promoting projects and institutions that are attempting to face and resolve this issue like the Sentencing Project and the Equal Justice Initiative by supporting their work.

Age is not an excuse to ignore the corruption of our justice system, the way issues are resolved or brought to the public eye, is through speaking up and advocating. You have the ability to bring awareness to this issue by raising your voice and educating people on this serious, prevalent issue. The time is now to eliminate all racial bias, all stereotypes and all inequality in all aspects of life. It’s time to clear the dark cloud floating over the system.