Plenty of Unfair Cases in America
Published in People's Daily
(China) on 27 November 2014
by Shang Xiefu (link to original)
Decades ago, when I was just a kid, I remember hearing an American government spokesperson criticizing foreign governments on human rights on the radio. I thought at the time, why didn’t foreign governments criticize America’s own shortcomings on the issue of racism?
Now that I work as a lawyer, I often think to myself, why do American legal scholars always use emulation of the American system as the standard when evaluating other countries? America’s murder rate is 12 times higher than Japan’s, six times higher than Germany’s, five times higher than China’s and four times higher than England’s. What is worth imitating here?
Let’s take a look at the rights of the defendant in America! Some believe that a so-called fair trial is more important than arresting and punishing real criminals. America has a law [that prohibits] the jury from hearing about the defendant’s other crimes and allegations — the reason being that if the jury heard about the murder defendant’s other horrific crimes (such as rape or theft), that jury might assume the defendant is guilty, even if he didn’t commit the murder in question and the jury could wrongfully indict him. The facts prove that this principle has many flaws and has led to many wrong verdicts. For example, a Baltimore man named Nelson Bernard Clifford was accused of rape six times, but acquitted four times.
No country is perfect, nor is there a system and society that always handles things perfectly. America is no different. If countries could interfere in each other’s business, then for some problems, Asian governments could actually pressure America for improvements, i.e., American universities’ discrimination against Chinese and Asian-American students. According to a Princeton University professor’s research, in the college entrance exam where 1600 is a perfect score, Asian-American students have to score 140 points higher than white students to be accepted by the same school. Asian-American students make up a high percentage of the five most elite high schools in New York, such as the famous Stuyvesant High School, where Asian-American students are 72.5 percent of the student body. New York City Mayor [Bill] de Blasio actually demanded change in law and enrollment policies to lower the acceptance ratio of Asian-American students. The American Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, stopping Chinese laborers from coming into the U.S., and now Mayor de Blasio and many top American universities have actually created an academic Chinese Exclusion Act, making Asian-American students’ school acceptance harder than ever.
America has plenty of unfair cases and problems of racism in its justice system, too; it is far from perfect.
Now that I work as a lawyer, I often think to myself, why do American legal scholars always use emulation of the American system as the standard when evaluating other countries? America’s murder rate is 12 times higher than Japan’s, six times higher than Germany’s, five times higher than China’s and four times higher than England’s. What is worth imitating here?
Let’s take a look at the rights of the defendant in America! Some believe that a so-called fair trial is more important than arresting and punishing real criminals. America has a law [that prohibits] the jury from hearing about the defendant’s other crimes and allegations — the reason being that if the jury heard about the murder defendant’s other horrific crimes (such as rape or theft), that jury might assume the defendant is guilty, even if he didn’t commit the murder in question and the jury could wrongfully indict him. The facts prove that this principle has many flaws and has led to many wrong verdicts. For example, a Baltimore man named Nelson Bernard Clifford was accused of rape six times, but acquitted four times.
No country is perfect, nor is there a system and society that always handles things perfectly. America is no different. If countries could interfere in each other’s business, then for some problems, Asian governments could actually pressure America for improvements, i.e., American universities’ discrimination against Chinese and Asian-American students. According to a Princeton University professor’s research, in the college entrance exam where 1600 is a perfect score, Asian-American students have to score 140 points higher than white students to be accepted by the same school. Asian-American students make up a high percentage of the five most elite high schools in New York, such as the famous Stuyvesant High School, where Asian-American students are 72.5 percent of the student body. New York City Mayor [Bill] de Blasio actually demanded change in law and enrollment policies to lower the acceptance ratio of Asian-American students. The American Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, stopping Chinese laborers from coming into the U.S., and now Mayor de Blasio and many top American universities have actually created an academic Chinese Exclusion Act, making Asian-American students’ school acceptance harder than ever.
America has plenty of unfair cases and problems of racism in its justice system, too; it is far from perfect.
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