Racially Based Jury Nullification Essay

The article, Racially Based Jury Nullification: Black Power in the Criminal Justice System is written by Paul Butler and in his essay he writes about four major topics describing the racial influence in jury decisions. He also writes about the ways in which we can prevent theses racial based jury decisions. In my essay, I will be summarizing Butler’s article and analysing the way he approaches the criminal cases against African-Americans. Furthermore, I will describe my opinion of the way he supports him claim, speak about his arguments and compose a counter argument that can be used to critique his main argument. Paul Butler is an African-American man and former federal prosecutor. More specifically he dealt with misdemeanor crimes in the District of Columbia in the 1990s . During his time at the U.S. Attorney’s office he discovered an important element that would influence the results of his trials; this being that no matter the amount of evidence against an African-American man, the black jurors will vote in the criminal’s favour. An important question he presents in this article is “what role race should play in black juror’s decisions to acquit defendants in criminal cases.” The author believes that this is an important question to ask because he feels as though “the race of a black …show more content…
In his essay, he states that he would like to rehabilitate the system of the American criminal system. Butler provides relevant arguments such as the racism in court, specifically the way white jurors are more likely to agree with a white person’s testimony as opposed to a black person’s. His opinion concerning the alarming rate of youth entering prison before the age of thirty is something we should look at in more depth. With all these positive changes he is trying to make for nonviolent criminals, he seems too prejudice towards African Americans and not willing to give Caucasians the same benefit of the