My law and justice experiance

My law and justice experience actually happened recently when i received a misdemeanor and had to appear in front of a judge. It actually started with me getting pulled over because one of my tail lights were out, but it also turned out that my tags were way out of date and my license plate was expired. I got the notice that I had to go to court on a specific date. The date came up and I was extremely nervous expecting a big court room with a lot of people. I went into the courthouse and asked the reception where I was supposed to go and she pointed me towards a room. Even before I came before the judge I decided that I would plead guilty and try to get some lesser sentence. I didn't even know before I took this class that what I did was called plea bargaining. I went before just the judge and I told him that I did not realize my tags were out of date and really it was my responsibility to get them renewed. The judge responded in a good tone and decided that since it was my first misdemeanor that he would lower the charge from a 100 dollars to 50 dollars. I was extremely happy with his decision and thanked him. I left the court room with a good feeling about how the law system works. It wasn't really an epic law and justice experience, but it was the first time I was ever in front of a judge being charged with something and it really meant a lot to me.

Chapter 13: Comparative Law: Law in Other Cultures

This section was vaguely covered in class, but the two main things that I took away from it were law in tribes and bands and socialism. Law in the tribes and bands were more basic human nature laws, but did hold some intelligence in actually starting the Law system in the world. Some of the things that bands and tribes did practice though were highly brutal such as blood feuds where one family member would be killed so that family would kill a member of the family they thought killed their family member. This would go back and forth until someone stopped it or the family's were wiped out. If you look at the picture above of a rap battle where two rappers make fun of each other back and forth is actually a form of law in early tribes. Tribes practiced insulting one another and who ever one won the argument and that's how civil law was in early humanity. However banishment and punishment for the guilty really started the law system in tribes and bands. Its amazing how even the first humans had law in bedded in them.

Socialism is actually quite a harsh system. It relies on a low tolerance crime system. In words this system is quite good because after some time the people of a country will fear their leaders and law will not be needed anymore or they could overrun the government. The only problem with this system is that the leaders made laws that would benefit themselves not the people. Therefor it was really just a system to get things that the rulers wanted and in my opinion too harsh of a system for a people to handle.

Chapter 12: Racial Minorites and the Law

If I was to reflect back to this chapter I would have to say that even though racial discrimination in the law has lessened over a long period of time it still exists and is a long way away from being solved. Some thing that really amazed me was the Dred Scott case. How could someone live in a free state for so long and still be considered a slave. I know that slaves were considered property at that time, but in free states shouldn't they revert back to humans. Many products change their orientation when they go from one country to another such as gum is illegal in some countries, but not ours. If we go by that logic if a slave goes from the south to the north they should have automatically become free.

The slaves were freed with the emancipation proclamation, but for a great number of years and even today they are discriminated against. However, I believe that discrimination has lessened over the years because of the work of the people of this nation. African Americans choose not to take the discrimination, so they stood up and made the government give them their rights. A lot of the changes though actually came because of court cases such as Smith v. Allwright in 1944 which made it so states could not deny black people the right to vote. This case started a chain of other cases that gave black people a lot of the rights they have today. I was really amazed by how just one case can start something so big and I really wish it could happen more often.

If you would like to know more about how African Americans gained their rights please watch Martin Luther King's speech "I have a dream". The speech can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk.

Chapter 11: Woman and the Law

If I was to reflect upon this chapter I would have to say that women would have to be the most under protect class in the world. Black men even received rights before women did and I find that quite disturbing. However, over time women started to gain more and more rights, but they are not yet equal to anyone else in our society. Most if not all governments in the world are still patriarchy's or dominated by males. I do have an opinion on women being equal though. I believe that women should not be equal for a number of reason. First of which is that women physically are not equal to men therefor in specific jobs males should be payed more based on their strength. Second, women are the sole producers of children. A woman should not be payed less nor should she be fired from work for missing any type of work because of the pregnancy. Some say this is unfair, but when it comes down to it without women the human race would die out.

One thing that should really change is that men and women should be treated equally in the eyes of the law. In old England if a man killed his wife he would be hung and if a woman killed her husband it would be considered treason. This is unfair and in my opinion men and women should get the same charge. Even thought they are physically different men and women have the same mental capability's.

In concluding this blog I have one last thing to say. Men and women should be treated equally in some aspects of life, but really I do not believe that they will ever be fully equal just because of the nature of the human race.