Bias of the Criminal Justice System:

Bias of the Criminal Justice System:

1959 to Today.

Rhetorical Arrangement Strategies

Rhetorical Appeals

The author uses Pathos to add life to the characters and form a bond between them and the reader in order to generate feelings of loss, or hostility towards the murders when the family is killed.

"I just love her to death. Well, everybody does. There isn't anybody like Bonnie. Bonnie Clutter is always in a hurry, but she always has time. And that's one definition of a full-blooded Christian."

Capote uses imagery to describe the scene to help the audience better understand the mental state of the murderers at the time of the crime; "When Smith attacked Mr. Clutter he was under mental eclipse, deep inside a schizophrenic darkness". - Pg. 302

This supports the author's argument that the criminals are clinically insane.

Racism / Circumstance

Unfair Laws

Personal Analysis of the Author's Argument

Rhetorical Appeals Cont.

"The courts bear significant responsibility for the injustices suffered by minorities in our criminal system. In the face of the overwhelming racial disparities created by policing tactics, prosecutorial decision-making and unjust sentencing laws, courts have generally declined to examine or redress racial inequality in the criminal justice system, and have made it harder for litigants to expose such flaws."

-Civil Rights.org

The author also uses examples of Ethos by using the credibility of the lawyers and the investigators to contrast with the backgrounds of Perry and Dick. This brings in a Law vs. Crime and Government vs. Citizens theme.

“Toward the end, a total of eighteen men were assigned to the case full time, among them three of the K.B.I.’s ablest investigators—Special Agents Harold Nye, Roy Church, and Clarence Duntz. With the arrival in Garden City of this trio, Dewey was satisfied that “a strong team” had been assembled. “Somebody better watch out,” he said.”

"Confined as he was by the M'Naghten Rule... that Kansas law allowed nothing more than a yes or no reply to the pertinent question... had Dr. Jones been permitted to discourse on the cause of his indecision, he would have testified: 'Perry Smith shows definite signs of severe mental illness.' " - Pg. 294

The author's rhetorical strategies are effective partly due to our current societal state of widespread trial analysis and broadcasting. We view the world through a media filter, but once you think about how information is being manipulated due to opinionated diction, it is easy to pick out.

Unfair Laws Cont.

Green (12%): Percentage of white males who go to jail at some point in their lives.

Red (32%): Percentage for their black male counterparts

Blue (20%): Percent of white males in jail compared to other minority groups

"The judiciary's failure to redress obvious injustices by curbing access to and restricting the use of data reflects the disparate impact of law enforcement and prosecutorial practices."

-Civil Rights.org

Jury Bias

Subjectivity of Trials

"For many years there has been concern about the roll of discretion in criminal administration - the extent to which the subjective judgment of an official determines what will be done with the suspect, defendant, or convict. The basis for this concern has been the fear that people's lives, liberty, and well being depend on the arbitrary, discriminatory decisions of corrupt officials".

- Duke Law Journal

"During the voir dire examination, four of [the prospective jurors] told the court they had been personally, though not intimately, acquainted with Mr. Clutter; but upon further questioning [they] did not feel this . . . would hinder [their] ability to reach an impartial verdict. . . . [One juror] said, when asked his opinion of capital punishment, "Ordinarily I'm against it. But in this case, no" - a declaration which . . . seemed clearly indicative of prejudice. [He] was nevertheless accepted as a juror. (273) "

Works Cited:

Red And Pink (Together) - 50%

Half of the wrongly accused are convicted due to false eyewitness accounts.

Green, Hank. "Mass Incarceration in the US." YouTube. Vlogbrothers, 4 Apr. 2014. Web. 01 Sept. 2014. <

"Justice On Trial." The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Web. 01 Sept. 2014. <http://www.civilrights.org/publications/justice-on-trial/>.

"Narrowing the Discretion of Criminal Justice Officials." Duke Law Journal. Duke Univesity, Sept. 1976. Web. 1 Sept. 2014. <http%3A%2F%2Fscholarship.law.duke.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D2586%26context%3Ddlj>.

"A Statistical Look at Criminal Justice and Injustice." ABA Human RIghts. American Bar Association. Web. 01 Sept. 2014. <http://www.americanbar.org/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/human_rights_vol31_2004/winter2004/irr_hr_winter04_statistical.html>.

Conclusion

"Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere. It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff."

-Alan Greenspan

The war on crime has turned into a war on people.

-Hank Green

By: Bethany Buck, Sue Kim, Abby Schuyler, Lauren Pan, and Hinal Patel

25% of the world's "criminal" population is found in the USA

(vs. 4% of the total world pop.)

Pink- (40%) percentage of juveniles go to jail at some point or another in the US Justice System (Before age 23)