Let me start a discussion about the justice system.
I've known, and seen, for quite some time that the justice system favors people with money - especially if the one with money is white, but there are some severe flaws in the judicial system for a number of reasons.
The first reason I will touch on is the most obvious, yet perhaps the most overlooked problem. Humans. We rely on humans, who are presented with facts, to act according to what they discover from a court's proceedings to rule for or against someone.
This is simple. Human emotions, however, are extremely far from simple. They are easily played and preyed upon - hence how Donald J. Trump became president of the United States of America. (Get as pissed as you want by this comment, but if you weren't personally biased towards him/the Republican party then you'd be shitting all over yourself like a newborn baby trying to figure out how people could have elected him, just like the rest of the world is doing).
I will use an example - I was called in for a jury summons. The case I was summoned for was a shooting. A young black man was accused (don't ask for his name as I won't ever remember). Another person who was summoned, just as I was, began talking to me on a break between the attorneys interrogating those of us who were summoned and the conversation went pretty much like this - the person discussing it will me proclaiming this young black man as being guilty, absolutely without a doubt, he was guilty. This was perplexing to me especially because there was no evidence presented. Just a name of the accused and the crime he was being accused of. Just that simple.
Even more than that, however, was the overly cock-sure attitude this person had. Not only was he guilty, but the person in the room sitting at one of the tables - mind you, this is where the attorneys and the accused were sitting - was the one who got shot! Now me being me, and always more interested in discovering what makes a person think the way they do, I continued to listen to this theory of his.
And boy, it was a baseless theory. His entire theory was based around the young black man being on the road it took place on, and why else would he be there? And that poor guy in the wheelchair!
Turns out that the poor guy in the wheelchair was defending the young black man as his attorney.
I have no idea how that trial played out. I wasn't selected to follow through with it all, but the process of selecting the jurors and the interactions I had with the people there was enough to give me great insight as to how they choose people - which ones will be sympathetic to the attorneys cause.
And it goes even further than this. I couldn't even imagine to deduce the amount of juries who have been persuaded to place someone in prison for a crime they didn't commit just so the attorney prosecuting can line their pockets, but I have no doubt that if there were a way to truly deduce the amount that it would be staggering.
That is just how it goes with human beings. It is all just a show. If you learn how to tap into another person's emotions you can convince them of anything - every war has been backed by emotions just the same as every homeless shelter has been built by them. Every religion thrives because of emotions just as every decision we make is based on them.
Think about what you're going to eat for dinner tonight or tomorrow. You run through a list of things to eat and you find yourself saying how you don't feel like making that or that food sounds good. The very basis of what you eat is how you feel about the food - whether it is the process of making it discouraging you or the restaurant you choose being a favorite spot.
Even the political arguments we get into - if we truly looked at statistics then Democrats and Republicans would die off in favor of no parties at all, just people who truly wanted to make the country we live in better. Instead we have Republicans relying on religion to gain support and Democrats relying on fear of the future. Emotions and the emotions attached to what the party is saying.
Perhaps the only way to overcome the emotions when sentencing someone to 30 years in prison is to start by acknowledging how our personal biases affect us in every choice we make every day of our lives.
-Dustin S. Stover
I've known, and seen, for quite some time that the justice system favors people with money - especially if the one with money is white, but there are some severe flaws in the judicial system for a number of reasons.
The first reason I will touch on is the most obvious, yet perhaps the most overlooked problem. Humans. We rely on humans, who are presented with facts, to act according to what they discover from a court's proceedings to rule for or against someone.
This is simple. Human emotions, however, are extremely far from simple. They are easily played and preyed upon - hence how Donald J. Trump became president of the United States of America. (Get as pissed as you want by this comment, but if you weren't personally biased towards him/the Republican party then you'd be shitting all over yourself like a newborn baby trying to figure out how people could have elected him, just like the rest of the world is doing).
I will use an example - I was called in for a jury summons. The case I was summoned for was a shooting. A young black man was accused (don't ask for his name as I won't ever remember). Another person who was summoned, just as I was, began talking to me on a break between the attorneys interrogating those of us who were summoned and the conversation went pretty much like this - the person discussing it will me proclaiming this young black man as being guilty, absolutely without a doubt, he was guilty. This was perplexing to me especially because there was no evidence presented. Just a name of the accused and the crime he was being accused of. Just that simple.
Even more than that, however, was the overly cock-sure attitude this person had. Not only was he guilty, but the person in the room sitting at one of the tables - mind you, this is where the attorneys and the accused were sitting - was the one who got shot! Now me being me, and always more interested in discovering what makes a person think the way they do, I continued to listen to this theory of his.
And boy, it was a baseless theory. His entire theory was based around the young black man being on the road it took place on, and why else would he be there? And that poor guy in the wheelchair!
Turns out that the poor guy in the wheelchair was defending the young black man as his attorney.
I have no idea how that trial played out. I wasn't selected to follow through with it all, but the process of selecting the jurors and the interactions I had with the people there was enough to give me great insight as to how they choose people - which ones will be sympathetic to the attorneys cause.
And it goes even further than this. I couldn't even imagine to deduce the amount of juries who have been persuaded to place someone in prison for a crime they didn't commit just so the attorney prosecuting can line their pockets, but I have no doubt that if there were a way to truly deduce the amount that it would be staggering.
That is just how it goes with human beings. It is all just a show. If you learn how to tap into another person's emotions you can convince them of anything - every war has been backed by emotions just the same as every homeless shelter has been built by them. Every religion thrives because of emotions just as every decision we make is based on them.
Think about what you're going to eat for dinner tonight or tomorrow. You run through a list of things to eat and you find yourself saying how you don't feel like making that or that food sounds good. The very basis of what you eat is how you feel about the food - whether it is the process of making it discouraging you or the restaurant you choose being a favorite spot.
Even the political arguments we get into - if we truly looked at statistics then Democrats and Republicans would die off in favor of no parties at all, just people who truly wanted to make the country we live in better. Instead we have Republicans relying on religion to gain support and Democrats relying on fear of the future. Emotions and the emotions attached to what the party is saying.
Perhaps the only way to overcome the emotions when sentencing someone to 30 years in prison is to start by acknowledging how our personal biases affect us in every choice we make every day of our lives.
-Dustin S. Stover
