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Category: Societal Issues
Date Submitted: 09/04/2012 10:01 AM
Affirmative Action in Criminal Justice
CJA 344 Cultural Diversity in Criminal Justice
President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925 in 1961 mandating federal contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin” (Sykes, 2012, para. 1). The National Organization for Women (2012) website expands the definition of affirmative action as “the set of public policies and initiatives designed to help eliminate past and present discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” (Sykes, para. 1). From this information, most people associate affirmative action with education, employment, and voting, whereas few might include criminal justice in that association. However, affirmative action influences criminal justice courtroom proceedings and judicial practices across the nation, despite the opponents who argue it is no longer necessary.
The concept of affirmative action influencing the proceedings of criminal courtrooms and judicial practice may cause some people to disagree. However, when the criminal courtroom proceedings are critically analyzed, clues to the influence of affirmative action become evident. For example, strategic approaches to jury selection may be questioned and the rights of jurors or potential jurors may be more of a focus than the defendants’ rights. In the case of Powers v. Ohio, such was the case. The Court ruled that attorneys could not use peremptory challenge based on the race of a venire member. In fact, an African American defendant challenged his indictment effectively by arguing to an appellate court that the ruling judge in the trial infringed upon the rights of jurors when the judge chose the foreperson base on being African American, striving to amend for prior discrimination (King, 1994). The defendant won his appeal.
Judicial practices likewise are influenced by...