Jurors are average citizens selected from the community to serve as peer evaluators of a case in trial. This means that they have no specialized training regarding law or court processes which can manifest as misinformation or biases that can impact a verdict decision. An individual’s personal beliefs can prevent objectivity in their evaluation of a trial even in their application to participants in the court. For instance, a prosecutor’s job is to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, but a juror could potentially look to the defense attorney to prove innocence instead. Jurors could also look to the judge as the decision maker and follow whatever perceived response they are giving as an indicator of how they should decide. Overall, a healthy understanding of the roles in a trial is of high importance for objectivity of a jury member.

When I was younger, I remember gaining most of my knowledge regarding how high school, or even college, would play out in a social sense from my television screen. I absorbed the standard tropes of various early 2000s movies and classic tv shows that clearly depicted everything about it from what was considered popular or dorky to what clothes were cool and what would have you sitting alone at lunch. Obviously, as most girls without a clue did, I tried my best to mimic the practices that were glorified on screen: skirts and snarky attitude, mostly. None of this worked out for me in the long run because it was all manufactured and most of it was inaccurate anyway. Wearing high heels to school was completely wrong, but being a cheerleader didn’t hurt. So there was a give and take, but it took me a long time to realize what was real and what was drama for the screen. It unfortunately has taken me until my senior year of college to understand that none of it was actually real and the only way to experience life is to live it, in reality and as yourself, not under the mask of tv show characters or anyone else.

Until reading and watching this week's materials, I had no idea that there were so many gaps in the scientific basis of forensic science. This obviously leads me to believe that most other jurors suffer from a similar lack of information. Failed forensics can be seriously harmful to the integrity of the justice system, as seen in the videos of the week, the inconsistencies of these practices have led to false convictions and false acquittals on numerous occasions. The problem is that there is such a long history of forensic science being not only accepted, but necessary in a criminal trial to the point that if it were to be disqualified all together, it would be immeasurably more difficult to prosecute real criminals. Personally, I am unclear on a solution to the issue because on one hand, I trust the scientific basis of things like DNA and even fingerprint analysis based on its long history, but there are many other areas of the science that I think need to be studied in much greater detail before being admissible to a court in order to conserve the semblance of justice we have now.

A major factor of both cases shown in documentaries this week that had an impact on the proceeding was media attention and interpretation. Though it is not supposed to according to law, the court of public opinion can heavily influence the outcome of any criminal case. In cases that are very high profile, the way the media addresses the proceedings, victims, and defendants in public forums can create a general unconscious bias surrounding the investigation and trial. When the Central Park 5 were painted out to be hardcore gang members, the world stopped seeing them for what they were; scared children in the wrong place at the wrong time. When Amanda Knox was described as a sex-crazed party girl, her credibility in the eyes of the public was tarnished with the rest of her reputation. The media can have a way of turning real life events into “good stories” that help them sell content, but can drastically change the way we as people view the sources. Though this has been shown to be a problem of bias and unethical behavior, all persons accused of crimes have a right to public trial. With everything being public, the media inherently has a right to spread the information, and under their right to free speech they can twist and turn it however they please. While I realize there is an obvious moral dilemma surrounding this, I will admit that I fall into crime documentaries and Twitter news spirals as often as the next person, so I cannot really imagine this issue can be avoided due to the large market that exists from our own morbid human curiosity.

Mass incarceration in America is one of the most obvious indicators of flaws in our country’s justice system. In the 13th documentary, we learn that the U.S. houses 25% of the world’s incarcerated persons, completely disproportionate to our population. This either implies that we have the worst and greatest number of criminals in the world, or the more likely option is that we are handling crime incorrectly. In my opinion, the prison system in this country is inhumane and unnecessarily large. So many American tax dollars go towards imprisoning people that either need rehabilitation or do not deserve the punishment. Prisons were first made as a loophole to the abolition of slavery, to gain free labor as a result of punishing crime, but with the same history of policing in America, this method disproportionately targets black and brown communities. Still today, people of color are more likely to be arrested, convicted, and even killed by branches of the justice system meant to protect them. The increased rates of imprisonment damage these communities through the destruction of families and reputations. All of this creates legislative loopholes that allow for discrimination and subjugation of these peoples. A quote I once heard that applies here said, “Racism is woven so intricately into the fabric of America that standing against it is seen as an act of treason”. The distrust of the criminal justice system is so beyond valid that I almost don’t understand how there are people who fail to question it when every stage of our history proves that people of color, men women and children alike, should be afraid of it. 

Reading this book over the course of the last few weeks has given me a greater emotional insight into the people who play roles in the justice system. For one, the story has made it more clear that the players within the system are not just nameless cogs in the machine of justice, but rather regular human beings with the same tendencies toward mistakes and biases just like any regular civilian. While we as citizens want to expect perfection from the government that holds power over us, there will always be issues because it will always rely on the complex and volatile nature of humanity. In the reading, it was nice to see how impactful one person can be when they are focused on justice, while holding a certain level of compassion for those affected by the lack of it. It is not a surprise to hear about corruption and misdeeds committed throughout judicial histories, but there are revelations of hope given in the stories that focus on fighting for what is right in the face of such unjust obstacles.