Innocent until proven guilty

A commodity is a good, which is in demand. The economy is driven by the consumers demands; if a person wants something there is a good chance that another person will be willing to provide the good, or service that is in demand.

When you have a broken sink you have two options: learn how to fix it yourself, which can cost you a lot of time especially if you don’t have any plumbing experience, or you can hire someone to fix it for you if you can afford it. Similarly, when you get in trouble with the law you have the choice, to have a lawyer appointed for you (if you cant afford one), hire one yourself, or choose not to hire one and represent yourself. People that can afford to hire a lawyer do because the better the lawyer the better he or she knows how to “get you out of trouble.” For example I knew someone in high school that was charged with a DWI on two separate occasions, he blew above the legal limit both times, but he was able to hire a really good lawyer to get him out of it. It turned out that he had both DWI charges reduced to a misdemeanor.

It all comes down to how we set up our justice system; you are innocent until proven guilty. This is an improvement on previous criminal justice systems, but it is still subtlety plagued by inequality. In order to show that you are not guilty you must know the law, and in many cases the law can be very complex. People go to law school for four years, and when they graduate they are specialized in only in a certain area of the law because of the complexity and amount of the different laws in this country.

Being able to afford a good lawyer is a luxury for a lot of people. As we have seen in this class, being a certain race can tremendously influence how wealthy you are. There are many inequalities that exist in our culture because of distribution of wealth, and one of them is the justice system. If you are able to afford a good lawyer your chances of getting the charged dropper are greater than if you represented yourself or if you had a lawyer appoint to you. If one race has more money than another race they are able to afford a good lawyer and they have a greater chance to get the charged dropped. It would be interesting to set up an experiment where a poor person commits the same exact crime as a wealthy person to see if a lawyer that the wealthy white person can afford would be able to get the charges dropped or not. I would hypothesize that more times than not the wealthy person would get the charges dropped or lowered vs. the poor person. Obviously if there is no doubt that a person is guilty of a crime no lawyer will be able to get you out of it, but there is often a lot of gray area and this is where it helps to have a good lawyer who knows the law inside and out.

A recent example of this is with Ben Roethlisberger. Now let me be clear I am not saying that he is guilty, but his case and other professional athletes cases (O.J. Simpson) are good examples of the gray area that exists in a criminal case, which is where it is helpful to have a good lawyer. Having the lawyer will increase your chances to get the charges dropped or lowered, and will ensure that the legal process is properly carried out.

Another interesting implications of the inequality in the criminal justice system is how this inequality compounds upon itself. Fore example, take my friend from high school who had his first and second DWI charge dropped to a misdemeanor. Every job he applies for in the future he does not have to explain why he has a felony on his record. This puts him at a great advantage over someone who couldn’t afford a good lawyer and ended up with a felony on his or her record. Most likely my friend would get the job and be able to continue to accumulate wealth to pass on to his future generation.

Certain races are able to afford good lawyers, and in turn are able to have the charged dropped or lowered. Other races can’t afford good lawyers, and in turn they have to spend time in jail. Money and wealth is unevenly distributed amongst different and this is causing the inequalities in the criminal justice system that is being observed by the empirical data collected by sociologists.

Duane Fuhrman