What do the courts do?

• Most prevalent images of courts found in news accounts and in other media are misleading– Implication is that what courts do is regularly have

trials …– That trials are “normal”

Why trials?

• Coverage of courtroom activity is driven in part by financial considerations about what the audience wants to see and what will produce market returns

• Only some court functions sell. Trials, which often center on violent crime and feature conflict, are appealing to the media.

Media images of courts“For many in today’s world, mass media images are their primary source of knowledge about law, lawyers, and the legal system … Directly and indirectly, the media paint a distorted image of the courts. When portrayed indirectly as in the law enforcement focused media, the courts are often alluded to as soft on crime, easy on criminals, due process-laden institutions that repeatedly release the obviously guilty and dangerous. … When shown directly, court officers are often more engaged in fighting crime than in practicing law.”

-- Ray Surette (2007)

Caption: The US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, is the one court thatperhaps best symbolizes “justice” to citizens. Yet, the Court hears thelowest amount of cases of all American courts, and only acceptsabout 1% of the cases that are appealed to it.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

• 5-4 decision overturning part of Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), commonly referred to as “McCain-Feingold” law

• Media reactions to ruling very diverse http://www.pscj.appstate.edu/media/citizensunited.html

• http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-25-2010/supreme-corp

Focus on state courts

• More media coverage of state courts and the types of crime they deal with– Accurate since most court activity is at state level – But, implications of focus on street crime?

Caption: The great bulk of convictions for “serious crime” or feloniesoccurs in state courts.

Focus on state courts

• In 2004, state courts convicted about 1.1 million adults of felonies.– Most common convictions were for drug offenses

(34% of all convictions) and property crimes (29% of all convictions). Only 18% of convictions in state courts were for violent crimes, including only 8,400 murder and nonnegligent convictions (less than 1% of the total convictions in state courts).

Focus on state courts

• Less than 75,000 people were convicted of felonies.– The most common convictions were for drug

offenses (34% of all convictions) and property offenses (17% of all convictions). Less than 5% of all convictions in federal courts were for violent crimes.

The right to trial?

• At the state level in 2004, 95% of convictions were achieved through plea bargains. Further, at the federal level in 2004, 96% of convictions were achieved through plea bargains.

• Compare this with media coverage of courts (adversarial)!

The right to trial?

Caption: Citizens think of a courtroom as an adversarial processwhere prosecutors and defense attorneys fight over the truth.In fact, nearly all felony cases are settled outside the courtroomwhen prosecutors and defense attorneys reach an agreementon a sentence without trial through the plea bargaining process.

Caption: In 2006, 46% of criminal justice funding went to police,followed by 32% for corrections, but only 22% for courts.One outcome of this imbalance of spending is an inability tohold trials for people accused of even serious crimes.

• Imbalance of power in the courts (prosecutors have the power)

• Typical defense attorney is public defender

• Unrepresentative nature of courtroom workgroups (low numbers of minorities)

Reasons why even trialsare not fair

• Create misconception that trials are common

• Create misconception that power in courts rests with defense attorneys

• Also create conception that there is a two-tiered court system

High Profile Trials(“Megacases”)

Caption: The metaphor of the “wedding cake” applies to criminal trialsin the United States. The top layer, the least common and thus thesmallest, is meant to depict those rare high profile trials that usuallyinvolve celebrities and/or heinous crimes. The bottom layer, thelargest and thus most common, is meant to represent the far morecommon every day, routine cases such as misdemeanors.

• Abuse of power – Cases where powerful people, often politicians or even criminal justice personnel have abused the power of their positions for personal gain.

• Sinful rich – Cases where very wealthy people engage in acts that may seem unethical or immoral, including drug use, sexual deviance, and so forth.

• Evil strangers – Cases where a person unknown to an innocent person (usually a child) does unspeakable harm through criminal activity motivated by personal evils.

Major Themes ofHigh Profile Trials

“… the rich are immoral in their use of sex, drugs, and violence; … people in power are evil, greedy, and should not be trusted and … strangers and those with different lifestyles or values are inherently dangerous.”

-- Ray Surette (2007)

Major Themes ofHigh Profile Trials

Cameras in the Courtsand Pre-Trial Publicity

• There is far more media coverage of courtroom activity involving the poor and people of color.

• This is logical given that the poor and people of color and disproportionately likely to be courtroom clients (even if it does reinforce the myth that these people are more dangerous).

Race and class in the courts

Sentencing

• For criminal justice processes to be just, they must be fair and not be affected by extraneous factors, such as race, gender, or socioeconomic status.

• Instead, sentences should be based on legal factors such as seriousness of offense and prior criminal record.

Sentencing

• “The empirical research done by criminal justice scholars has demonstrated with remarkable regularity that minority group members (particularly African Americans) and the poor get longer sentences and have less chance of gaining parole or probation, even when the seriousness of the crime and the criminal record of the defendants are held constant.”– Victor Kappeler and colleagues (2000)

Sentencing• “Judges in some jurisdictions continue to impose harsher sentences

on racial minorities who murder or rape whites, and more lenient sentences on racial minorities whose victims are of their own racial or ethnic group. Judges in some jurisdictions continue to impose racially biased sentences in less serious cases; in these “borderline cases” racial minorities get prison, whereas whites get probation. In jurisdictions with sentencing guidelines, judges depart from the presumptive sentence less often when the offender is African American or Hispanic than when the offender is white. Judges, in other words, continue to take race into account, either explicitly or implicitly, when determining the appropriate sentence.”– Samuel Walker and colleagues (2006)

Sentencing

• The issue of bias in sentencing rarely comes to the attention of the media. Why?– Most cases disappear from the media’s focus after

the arrest stage.– Examining racial disparities in sentencing and

discovering their sources requires resources, something many media organizations are unwilling to invest in such stories.

Sentencing

• One issue that has received attention of the media is that of black killers convicted by all white juries.

• Another issue that has received media attention is racial bias in drug sentencing.

Sentencing

• Most Americans are unaware of these realities due to little mainstream news coverage:– Investigative analyses into issues such as these are

costly– Media rely on insiders for information about crime

control policy– Media are generally pro status quo