Abstract:
The Critical Analysis essay, The Fight to End Criminal Injustice and Overturning Wrongful Convictions, focuses on a text that addresses a political issue on criminal injustice and wrongful convictions of African-American and Latino men. The purpose of the assignment was to evaluate the text, the author’s argument, and incorporate my own argument. By writing a clear thesis statement, it allows readers to view the meaning of the text of my choosing, my own opinion of the text and its meaning, and how the build-up of ideas from various texts helps connect to the world at large
The Fight to End Criminal Injustice and Overturning Wrongful Convictions
As cases of wrongfully convicted Latino and African-American men continue to rise, the United States legal system continues to be viewed as an unfair system more than a justice system. With the U.S. built on white beliefs, the lives of Latino and African-American men are at great risk as they are the first to be accused of any crime — murder, rape, robbery, sexual assault, etc — because of the racism and stereotypes that play a huge role in the U.S. With that being said, false accusations happen more frequently, cases of wrongfully convicted minorities continue to be a common feature in our legal system, and those freed will never get back the years they’ve lost or lived a normal life without facing hardships — struggling financially, estrangement from family, and adjusting to reality physically and mentally. A proposal to help combat the issue of criminal injustice is explained in How the Central Park Five Expose the Fundamental Injustice in Our Legal System where the author Adam Suddler proposes that social justice activists overturn wrongful convictions in hopes of achieving an overhaul on America’s legal system. By using logos and a direct approach, Suddler successfully addresses the issue by criticizing America’s corrupt legal system, examining faults made by authorities in past cases of wrongful convictions, ultimately informing those who are unaware of the seriousness of this issue. Overall, as this issue is still going on to this day, Suddler informs that it’s important to give this issue the recognition it deserves to help eliminate criminal injustice and bring innocent convicts the freedom and life they deserve.
As false accusations against Latino and African-American men continues to be a problem in today’s world, drastic measures have been done to decrease and eliminate the number of innocent Latino and African-American men from going to prison for a crime they did not commit. Beginning with the article, How the Central Park Five Expose the Fundamental Injustice in Our Legal System, the author Adam Suddler appeals to logos to help explain and expose the wrongdoings of the legal system. By appealing to logos, Suddler includes a variety of real-life tragic cases –The Central Park Five, The Trenton Six, and The Harlem Six– to help inform that within each of these cases they all involve racial injustices where minorities are, “…charged or convicted of violent crimes against white women, but eventually overturned”. For instance, Suddler goes into depth with the case of The Central Park Five where five Latino and African-American teenage boys were forced to confess to a rape [of a white woman] they did not commit, with little-to-no scarce evidence. By including these cases in his article, Suddler proves when it comes to race and class, minorities will always face inequality and unfairness in the legal system because oftentimes they are targeted and viewed as criminals in the eyes of the law. What has made it worse is, with Donald Trump as our president, he has found a way to make racism acceptable and allowable. For example, in Views of Race in America 2019 written by Anna Brown, she states that “Most Americans (65%) — including majorities across racial and ethnic groups — say it has become more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views since Trump was elected president”. With our nation built on white beliefs and Americans allowed to express their racist views, the lives of Latino and African-American men are in great danger. When it comes down to white versus minorities, it is evident on who authorities will accuse first. According to the scholarly article, Wrongful convictions and the Accuracy of the Criminal Justice, written by H. Patrick Furman, he examined multiple studies in which he found “DNA evidence [which] concluded that at least 57 percent of the wrongful convictions involved a defendant who was a member of a minority group”. Therefore, to help combat this issue, Suddler mentions the Innocence Project, a non-profit organization, where they help advocate for the innocent and exonerate those falsely accused through “DNA testing and reform criminal justice to prevent future injustice”. With their help, they have been able to exonerate 367 people, including 21 people who were put on death row, all of who had served approximately 14 years of their lives in prison. Overall, by appealing to logos, Suddler is educating his intended audience [those who aren’t aware of this issue] by informing them on the seriousness of this issue by incorporating the Innocence Project to show the measures they are taking to decrease and eliminate the number of innocent people in prison.
In addition to this, as cases of wrongfully convicted Latino and African-American men continues to be a common feature in our legal system, Suddler uses a direct approach to explain how this issue has maintained to last. By using The Central Park Five as an example, Suddler indicates how news media plays a huge role in changing people’s perspective and opinion as well as in the stereotyping of black men as being dangerous and violent. For instance, as this case was plastered all over the news, exaggerated and false headlines struck fear in the white community leaving authorities in desperate need to hold someone accountable. Therefore, the outcome for this issue was to simply make “brutal arrests and hysterical trial [of] multiple black defendants accused of a crime so monstrous that the whole apparatus of the state-backed by a totally terrorized and convinced public opinion can be brought into a direct onslaught against them”. With our nation built on white beliefs, it’s common for authorities and the news media to pinpoint Latino and African-American youth/men as suspects because of the stigma of violence and criminality that is attached to them. As indicated by Suddler, The Central Park Five case was a complete farce made up of false accusations, false confessions, evidence tampering, and police misconduct. Therefore, Suddler criticizes America’s corrupt legal system because as wrongful convictions still remain an issue to this day, this essentially proves the legal system is not taking any measures to fix this problem but instead incarcerating innocent people while the guilty ones roam free.
According to the scholarly article, African American Men as “Criminal and Dangerous”: Implications of Media Portrayals of Crime on the “Criminalization” of African American Men” written by Mary Beth Oliver, examines common stereotypes that help prove Suddlers point as to why wrongful convictions remain a common feature in our legal system. Oliver effectively brings to awareness the issue of law enforcement and citizens mistakenly identifying certain individuals [minorities] as violent and dangerous. For instance, Oliver mentions common stereotypes such as, “…store clerks who keep a particularly keen eye on African-American male costumers who are targeted as potential shoplifters…” as well as “…white women who clutch their pocketbooks more closely when in the presence of a black man.” These are common stereotypes that have been built-in in our society where it’s an instinct to keep an eye on minorities. Therefore, as seen with The Central Park Five case, authorities had no problem falsely accusing the five innocent Latino and African-American boys because, with the stigma of criminality attached to them, no one would believe their side of the story. Unfortunately, it is a constant battle Latino and African-Americans have to face because whatever they say or do in the public eye may lead them to face unfortunate events — false accusations, prison, or even killed.
According to The National Registry of Exonerations, there’s a total of 20 to 200 innocent people exonerated from prison every year. Of those — African-American, Hispanic, White, and others — serving time for a crime they did not commit, 49% percent are African-Americans and 12% are Hispanics. Life after prison for Latino and African-American men who were exonerated, face difficult hardships to the point where most prefer to stay in prison instead of their freedom. Despite Suddlers’ effective and informative use of evidence on his argument, he fails to address the negative effects of life after prison for those exonerated to expose all of the flaws in the legal system and to give this issue the recognition it deserves. However, a scholarly article that does go into detail on the lives of those exonerated is called Life Ater Prison For Hispanics: Ethnic, Racial, and Gender Realities, written by Martin Urbina, the author thoroughly explain that prisoners who committed a crime or not, once freed, they will leave from prison “….with old liabilities, like addictions, limited education, unskilled, and poor work habits, in addition to new ones, like a damaged relationship with family and friends, a criminal stigma or no place to go.” As this is the sad reality for innocent ex-convicts, some are able to receive money for all the years they have lost. For instance, Suddler mentions that when The Central Park Five were exonerated, “…the city paid them $41 million to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit”. However, this is not the case for everyone because according to the article A Hispanic man freed from prison after a wrongful conviction, but his nightmare is not overwritten by Tamoa Calzadilla, a falsely convicted person, freed from prison, are given nothing, “ no financial compensation, housing plan, savings, or health insurance”. Some states, however, like Washington ($200,000 per year), New Jersey ($50,000 per year), Wisconsin ($5,000 per year), and other states do provide financial aid every year to wrongfully convicted ex-prisoners. Depending on the state, if they were to give money back to innocent ex-convicts, it still wouldn’t be enough for all the damage and pain they were put through for years.
A criminal justice system should be fair to all: the administration of justice should not be affected because of one’s wealth, race, and social status. However, the United States is built on white beliefs along with racism and stereotypes which makes it almost impossible for there to be equality anywhere in the U.S. Through the use of logos and a direct approach, Adam Suddlers article in The Washington Post is straightforward and informative, in which he successfully addresses his argument as a call of action to help inform on the issue of criminal injustice against minorities –Latino and African-American men– and the countless flaws of the legal system. Although the author fails to incorporate the outcomes of the lives of those exonerated, its importance is massive to understand in order to get a grasp on how corrupt and awful America’s legal system is. Though it may take years, decades, or centuries to fix what’s broken, there are social activists and organizations trying to better the unfair world we live in by advocating for the innocent and gradually changing the ways of America’s legal system. With their help, they are taking it one step closer to eliminating criminal injustice, fighting for equality, and gradually providing minorities with a better and safer tomorrow.
Reflection
Throughout my research journey, after re-writing my thesis statement twice and receiving criticism on both, I felt like no matter how many times I re-wrote it, it still wouldn’t be good enough. After going through multiple scholarly articles and popular media sources, I constantly went back and tried to revise as much as I could which ultimately left me with my final piece. With that said, I wrote my thesis on criminal injustice after having watched the mini-series When They See Us as well as constantly being informed on this topic through Instagram and Twitter. As it is a relevant topic that’s still happening to this day, I thought to use the article How the Central Park Five Expose the Fundamental Injustice in Our Legal System, written by Adam Suddler, as my primary source because it talked about every point that I felt was very important — racism, stereotypes, the flaws of the legal system, criminal injustice, and more. After researching on the topic of criminal injustice for about an hour, I found that it was quite easy to look for popular media sources, however, when it came down to look for scholarly articles, it was extremely difficult. The majority of the ones that I found were either strong vocabulary based (difficult for me to understand or read) or they didn’t have what I was looking for. I overcame this challenge by inputting different keywords or writing what I was looking for in different ways. Eventually, after following this routine, I finally found three scholarly articles that satisfied what I felt strengthened my thesis. Moreover, after researching for my topic for about an hour, I had more popular media sources (6) than scholarly articles which led me to discard about four popular media sources. For example, an article that I discarded was, Falsely Imprisoned for 23 Years: Now He’s received $7 Million, written by Alan Feuer because I already had multiple articles on cases that dealt with the same issue so I didn’t want my paper to be repetitive. There were also a few that I completely forgot I had saved and wasn’t able to include it in my critical analysis paper. A major problem I faced while writing my Critical Analysis was trying not to summarize the texts that I had. I caught myself doing it multiple times after re-reading my essay from start to finish. I also had difficulties with bringing the texts back to the primary source and relating them. However, I overcame this issue by re-reading it, revising, editing, and re-writing certain parts. Lastly, I felt like the articles that I have used will support and help contribute to my argument because each article provides different kinds of information that all connect with one another. Furthermore, I structured the sources in a way where it would help make my essay flow and argument clear. For example, I started off with the primary source How the Central Park Five Expose the Fundamental Injustice in Our Legal System, which then led to the article Views of Race in America 2019 which explained once Donald Trump became president, he has made the lives of minorities worse. Following the next article Wrongful convictions and the Accuracy of the Criminal Justice, which was used because it consisted of studies and data on wrongful convictions against minorities. Next was the article African American Men as “Criminal and Dangerous”: Implications of Media Portrayals of Crime on the “Criminalization” of African American Men”, which helped explain why wrongful convicts continue to be a common feature in our legal system. Lastly, the articles Life Ater Prison For Hispanics: Ethnic, Racial, and Gender Realities and Hispanic man freed from prison after a wrongful conviction, but his nightmare is not over, were used to help inform on how the lives of those exonerated looks like after prison. Overall, I found this essay challenging more so than the previous essays we have written.
Work Cited
Oliver, Mary Beth. “African American Men as ‘Criminal and Dangerous’: Implications of Media Portrayals of Crime on the ‘Criminalization’ of African American Men.” Journal of African American Studies, vol. 7, no. 2, 2003, pp. 3–18. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41819017. Accessed 19 Apr. 2020.
Suddler, Carl. “Perspective | How the Central Park Five Expose the Fundamental Injustice in Our Legal System.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 12 June 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/06/12/how-central-park-five-expose-fundamental-injustice-our-legal-system/.
Liendo, Olivia, and Mario Victoria. “Hispanic Man Freed from Prison after Wrongful Conviction, but His Nightmare Is Not Over.” Univision, 22 Oct. 2018, www.univision.com/univision-news/united-states/hispanic-man-freed-from-prison-after-wrongful-conviction-but-his-nightmare-is-not-over.
Horowitz, Juliana Menasce, et al. “Views on Race in America 2019.” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project, 31 Dec. 2019, www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/04/09/race-in-america-2019/.
“Help Us Put an End to Wrongful Convictions!” Innocence Project, www.innocenceproject.org/.
Urbina, Martin Guevara. “LIFE AFTER PRISON FOR HISPANICS: Ethnic, Racial, and Gender Realities.” The New Latino Studies Reader: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective, by Ramón A. Gutiérrez and Tomás Almaguer, 1st ed., University of California Press, Oakland, California, 2016, pp. 571–592. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxz2h.35. Accessed 5 May 2020.
Patrick Furman, Wrongful Convictions and the Accuracy of the Criminal Justice System, Sept. 2003, at 11, available at http://scholar.law.colorado.edu/articles/513/.
