Law
The Forhmann and Behrens each deal with an aspect of inequality in the legal system. While Forhmann looks at the role of discordant locales in the decision whether to prosecute sexual assault cases, the Behrens article looked at the historical basis for felon disenfranchisement. The articles both deal with justice or lack of in relation to race, class and gender though from different perspectives, yet in the end both expose inequalities and suggest at changes that need to be made to increase fairness in the American legal system.
Lisa Frohmann’s article, Convictability and Discordant Locales: Reproducing Race, Class, and Gender Ideologies in Prosecutorial Decisionmaking details and analyses observations made in Center Heights of the prosecution process. Frohmann focuses on the usage of discordant locales by District Deputy Attorneys to discern whether a case is convictable. The discordant locales are essentially “place images� the meanings people associate with places acquired through the media and other non-firsthand accounts. In Frohmann’s observations DDA often used discordant locales in sexual assault cases where women from low income and minority neighborhoods were involved to decide whether or not a case was convictable. Often the issue was the discrepancy between the woman’s reality of life in the neighborhood versus how the jurors may perceive her and whether the jurors would see the woman’s reality or see the woman as immoral. Furthermore the prosecutors have to decide whether the woman’s behavior led to the sexual assault or if the woman was falsifying the event. In the end Frohmann concludes that the legal system through the use of discordant locales furthers entitlement of the white middle class.
The Ballot Manipulation piece shows how stripping felons of the right to vote, a seemingly gender, race and class neutral decision, actually drowns out the black vote and has so historically. The article points out that though the Constitution included no information as to who could or couldn’t vote much of the limitations on felon voting rights occurred after the Civil War. Today felon disenfranchisement is often approached as race neutral but the article calls it “laissez-faire racism�. After statistical analysis it concludes that felon disenfranchisement corresponds with the racial make up of felons of the particular state.
Clearly both articles point out significant equality issues in the legal system. First the Frohmann article shows that minorities and low-income victims are at a huge disadvantage in the legal system, often getting pushed aside due to their status. Furthermore states are likely to pass felon disenfranchisement laws based on the racial make up of felons, clearly drowning minority votes. Together these two articles show that though our legal system has made many strides in terms of equality there are still issues that need to be addressed.
1. The most difficult aspect of these two articles is that both issues (the decision to prosecute a case and felon disenfranchisement) are often viewed as class and race neutral what else can be done to expose the inequalities that remain in the legal system?
2. What if as Frohmann’s conclusion calls for more “risky� cases were tried and nonetheless failed to achieve a conviction then can discordant locales be viewed as positive and streamlining?