Racial Profiling and Inequality in the US
Daniel Sellers December 15, 2004 Racial Profiling and Inequality in the US for Dr. Suzanne Wilson S/A 235 Social Inequality Racial profiling can result in low self-esteem, fear or hatred of authoritie,s and a feeling in the minority community of being targeted by the powers that be. (Chowdhury, 2004) In September of 2004, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) released a report that estimated that there are currently 32 million victims of racial profiling living in the US, and that 87 million individuals are at-risk of becoming victims of this "human rights violation." The End Racial Profiling Act of 2004 defines racial profiling as "the practice of a law enforcement agent relying, to any degree, on race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin in selecting which individuals to subject to routine or spontaneous investigations" (States News Service, 2004). Hardly considered a topic for scholarly discussion fifteen years ago, the matter of racial profiling has been brought to the forefront of national issues. In fact, in June of 1999, President Clinton ordered a memorandum to the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of the Interior "to begin addressing the problem of racial profiling" (Meeks, 2000, p. 18). While racial profiling is most notoriously associated with the work of police and customs officials, many other citizens routinely engage in
The Jury System.
JURY SYSTEM The history of the jury system it was imported to Britain after the Norman Conquest, though its early functions were quite different from those it fulfils today. The first jurors acted as witnesses, providing information about local matters, and were largely used for administrative business gathering information for the Doomsday Book for example. Lather, under henry second, the jury began to take on an important judicial function, moving from reporting on events they knew about, to deliberating on evidence produced by the parties involved in a dispute. Gradually it became accepted that a juror should know as little as possible about the facts of the case today. The right to trial by jury can be traced back to Magna Carta (the great charter of liberties, 1215). A major milestone in the history of the jury was in Bushell's case (1670). Before this, judges would try to bully juries in convicting the defendant, particularly where the crime had political over tones but in Bushell's case it was established that the jury were the sole judges of fact, with the right to give a verdict according to their conscience and could not be penalised for talking a view of the facts opposed to that of the judge. The importance of this power now is that juries may acquit a defendant, even when the law demands a guilty verdict. Today the jury is considered a fundamental part of the
Discuss the suitability of the law to deal with the issues surrounding the prohibition of 'private'
Discuss the suitability of the law to deal with the issues surrounding the prohibition of 'private' "The present state of the law on sexual offenses reveals anomalies which demonstrate that the policy factors have not been fully thought through and rationally applied." (Hughes, 1962: p.685).1 Three decades later, little has changed. We are still questioning the ability of the law to deal with offenses and practices of a sexual nature. In order to answer the above question, I will firstly leave aside the question of how privacy should be defined, and for the sake of simplicity, take it to define what goes on in the context of one's own home. Included under the heading of sexual practices prohibited by law are a wide variety of offenses, including incest, sexual practices involving minors, acts of anal intercourse between heterosexual partners, and sadomasochism (hereafter SM). I will be attempting, in the following few pages, to explore the reactions of the law to SM, and in particular to the Operation Spanner proceedings, where the law failed to understand the essence of SM, and in doing so, proved itself wholly incapable of maintaining a face of justice. After outlining the events of Operation Spanner, I will examine the major points thrown up during the trials and appeals, and then follow by examining the strengths and weaknesses of these arguments against the
The origin of Equity & how it came to prevail over Common Law
The origin of Equity & how it came to prevail over Common Law The word 'equity' means to do something fairly. It is on this basis that the law of Equity operates. Equity developed because of problems in Common Law, of which there were several. Because people could plead as many defences as they liked, the case could be delayed for up to one year and a day. This meant that every case took longer that it should have and consequently, the system of Common Law became very slow. Another difficulty of Common Law was when the hearing was finally given; it was often in Latin so many people didn't understand what was going on in the courts. A further problem and possibly the most significant was the method by which cases had to be started in the Common Law Courts. This was done by obtaining a document known as a 'writ.' This was a statement of the case including all the relevant details needed for the case to proceed. However, this 'writ system' was very rigid after the passing of the Provision of Oxford in 1258, which declared no new writs, could be made. To get round this technical difficulty, the judges did develop 'fictions' which allowed some cases to proceed. These 'fictions' mean that they assumed certain facts for the case, even though those facts were not true. However, even with these 'fictions' the law was restricted to provide justice. Also, once a writ was on paper, it
Housing Law - Homelessness has increased over the past years and now there is a major need for a reform in this area of the law.
Housing Law LW2006 J. Virdee Homelessness has increased over the past years and now there is a major need for a reform in this area of the law. Under s175 (1) of the 1996 Housing Act, 'A person is homeless if has no accommodation in the UK or elsewhere' (world-wide). There are many causes of homelessness. These include, low income, unemployment, relationship breakdown and lack of affordability. Furthermore the factor of domestic violence may also lead to a person becoming homeless, especially women. Moreover the gradual increase in the rent also adds to the problems. This creates a divide between the rich and the poor, where the poor are 'punished for being poor' as they are not financially capable of keeping up with the rising rent, thus only those who can afford the houses would be able to obtain them. The amount of official homeless people has increased over the years, this is evident in the statistics. In the 1970's 50,000 households were accepted as homeless compared to 120,000 in 1995. These statistics are however not surprising, because this was reasonably expected due to the lack of cheap, affordable housing and the decline of building of new council housing in 1970's. One of the problems with this area of law is that there is some difficulty in obtaining 'accurate' statistics number of homeless people. This is due to the reason that generally those with children
Property Law Land Leases
Law of Property (Land) Essay Title: Freedom of contract versus the recognition of unequal bargaining power of landlords and tenants, together with the Courts' obligation to right the balance have been the defining characteristics of the ambivalence in the distinction between a lease and a license. Is the law clearer today after Street v Mountford [1985] and Bruton v London and Quadrant Housing Trust [2000]? Answer A critical feature of the tenancy is the grant of exclusive possession (a lease), which is the essence of the relationship between landlord and tenant. A lease is an estate1 in land and is distinguished from a licence, which confers only exclusive occupation and thus, is not protected by the Rent Acts2. However, it must be remembered that a lease also creates a contract between landlord and tenant and that, historically, it was characterised as something of a hybrid, namely, a chattel real, lying between real and personal property. It is apparent that landlords wish to enjoy the benefits of letting their property without the burden of the restrictions imposed by the Acts, for they believe that those Acts unfairly interfere with freedom of contract and aggravate the housing market. Tenants, on the other hand, believe that the Acts are a necessary protection against the exploitation of people who do not own the freehold or long leases of their homes. Up until mid
'Do you think that the courts offer the best means of solving disputes?'
'Do you think that the courts offer the best means of solving disputes?' Introduction Although courts are sometimes seen as the only right road to go down in order to settle a dispute, they are not. There are other methods of dispute resolution that can be used to settle an argument. Because of this, some people may argue that the courts are no longer the best way of solving a dispute. To determine whether or not the courts the best means of solving disputes, we first have to look at the advantages and disadvantages of the court along with the advantages and disadvantages of the other methods available. The courts As we are talking about the civil courts here, I think it would be best to mention the changes (that are relevant to the essay question) made over the years. The most prominent and important reforms have to be those recommended by Lord Woolf in the Woolf reforms. The reform that I would say is relevant to this question is the recommendation to 'encourage the use of alternative dispute resolutions' (these recommendations are made in his report Access to Justice 1996). So before I go on it is important to say that the courts try to encourage ADR and do not seek to become the sole decision of power to our country. This is important so we can look at and discuss the two methods equally without any sense of competition or rivalry. As with all legal procedures and
Recklessness is a problematic area of the criminal law.
Recklessness is a problematic area of the criminal law, since there is no strict definition of what constitutes it. Statutes make provision for the presence of recklessness, but have yet to define it strictly, so it becomes the job of judges to interpret the word. It is therefore most easily delineated via case law. So how does one go about interpreting exactly what may be a reckless act? To begin with, it is a type of mens rea for criminal liability. According to Kevin Boone,1 judges have had to rely on "explanations in important case reports" to work out what may amount to recklessness. This means going through potentially huge amounts of recklessness cases to see if the case in question could fall within the confines set out there. Realising this is challenging, the Law Commission have sought to rectify the situation, by releasing several working papers on the issue. One of them 2 gives the following explanation: "a person acts recklessly [if] he is aware of a risk that...exists or will exist [or] ...when he is aware of risk that...will occur and it is, in the circumstances known to him, unreasonable to take the risk." Even this in itself is dubious, as it can be difficult to establish the mindset of the defendant, and therefore whether it would really be seen as "unreasonable" to take a risk. However, it is the closest to a strict definition that the legal world
Critically analyse the extent to which the right to respect for a private life provides protection for a transsexual's ability to gain legal recognition for a change of gender.
Law of Personal Liberty Assessed Essay 2 January 2003 STUDENT ID: 316553 CRITICALLY ANALYSE THE EXTENT TO WHICH THE RIGHT TO RESPECT FOR A PRIVATE LIFE PROVIDES PROTECTION FOR A TRANSSEXUAL'S ABILITY TO GAIN LEGAL RECOGNITION FOR A CHANGE OF GENDER. Word Count: 5,035 Introduction: The right to respect for a private life is contained within Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights ("ECHR"), now enshrined in the United Kingdom by the Human Rights Act 1998. For many years transsexuals have argued that their right to respect for a private life provides protection for their ability to gain legal recognition for a change of gender. It is a legal battle which stretches back 33 years, to the case of former merchant seaman April Ashley. She underwent one of the earliest successful sex change operations, but after an unhappy marriage she applied to the High Court for a decree of nullity. It was held that, because her sex was irrevocably determined at birth, the marriage was void from the outset as both parties were male. Through the 1980s and 90s a succession of British transsexuals took their cases to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, arguing that British law's refusal to allow them to change the sex on their birth certificate deprived them of their right to respect for a private life1. It was not until the case of Goodwin and "I" in July 2002 that
Constitutional and Administrative Law
Constitutional and Administrative Law 'Since, moreover, Parliamentary Sovereignty obtains its ultimate sanction from judicial acceptance - it is a common law doctrine in that sense - it is quite implausible to suppose that it really must be absolute.'1 Parliamentary Sovereignty centralises the fact that Parliament is the supreme legal authority in the United Kingdom. Highlighting the fact that there are considerable differences between the United Kingdom and a number of other countries. Within the United Kingdom Parliament is able to make and unmake laws in accordance with the specific doctrine, however, for example, in the United States the legislature is prevented by the constitution in the laws it can or cannot make. The Supreme Court in the United States can declare laws passed by the legislature to be unconstitutional, thus making it invalid. The differences between both countries are clear. The traditional view in the United Kingdom that Parliament is not bound by any means to answer to or consider any legal limitation and that the courts in the United Kingdom have no power to declare laws passed by Parliament as invalid. Also highlighted within the same area is the point that legally Parliament can legislate on any topic anywhere, this role is centralised in the two leading authorities of, R v Casement2 and Dpp v Joyce3. However it has also been made clear