Democracy in the OJ Simpson Trial Research Assignment (Essay Sample)

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Democracy in the OJ Simpson Trial
The OJ Simpson trial violated democratic rights, and thus it is a failure of the social democracy. Orenthal James Simpson was found innocent in 1995 following the charges that had earlier been placed on him. He was initially accused of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson, his former wife, and Ronald Goldman. A second verdict followed where OJ Simpson was found guilty of violating civil rights by wrongfully killing his wife and Ronald Goldman. The families of the deceased filed the case, and the court ordered Simpson to pay $8.5 million as compensation fee for his actions. Simpson’s second trial is a clear case of jeopardy and is highly opposed. The paper carefully examines OJ Simpson’s trial and explains if the case was a success or failure of the American democracy.
The United States constitution Fifth Amendment acts prohibits twice subjecting a person to same alleged crime for the jeopardy of life and death. The court jeopardized Simpson twice and hence violated the bill of rights which gives the code of ethics. The U.S constitution specifies many of the democratic safeguards which require defending its interests, and that the rulers of capitalism keep always whittling away at it. The double jeopardy prohibition means that if a suspect is acquitted of some criminal offense, then no court is allowed to keep on retrying the case until it attains the desired verdict (Toobin, p.31).
The Social Contract Theory
The theory gives a view that the morals of a person depend on a contract or agreement between that person and the community in which he or she is living. The primary objective of the social contract theory shows that citizens of a particular country have an obligation of adhering to the essential social laws, regulations, institutions, and principles of a specific society. The social contract theory deals with public justification, which is in the determination of whether or not a particular regime has legitimacy and therefore worthy of loyalty (Toobin, p.32). In the OJ Simpson’s trial, the court jeopardized Simpson twice violating the bill of rights which specifies the code of ethics that Americans need to observe. The judges did a mistake in undermining Simpson, and thus the court is not worthy of loyalty and highly contributes to the failure of democracy.
Utilitarianism
The death penalty does not offer justice by deciding to take “an eye for an eye, ” and this is according to the terms of the utilitarian theory. The capital punishment is not supposed to be retaliatory but should be a means of deterring criminals from committing murder cases. The harshness of a sentence is only intended to cause fear and thus prevent a crime. The death penalty is also preferred to imprisonment because it deters the criminal from being freed from jail and engaging in subsequent murders. Therefore, basing the argument in this perspective, killing of a felon through capital punishment is justified if the act will prevent the criminal from taking another person’s life. The process ensures saving of the innocent lives. If conditions dictate that permission of crime to live would cause more murders, then the capital punishment is more appropriate means of administering sentence by the utilitarian theory (Toobin, p.33).
Philosophers also argue that the government is likely to save more money by execution of murder instead of taking care of criminals in the jails. Funds that could be allocated to more important projects such as education health and infrastructure is used for food and housing of the offender, and the act reduces the happiness of the community. On the other side, the criminal is unhappy for receiving life imprisonment. The utilitarian theory only calls for capital punishment if the murder of one criminal results in generation of happiness to the society. It is a requirement that the law courts should consider every scenario separately and administer appropriate punishment putting into consideration that the selected methods would have positive impacts on the results (Toobin, p.34).
OJ Simpson’s trial failed to meet the conditions Utilitarianism because the court did not carry detailed investigations to determine who killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman after finding Simpson innocent. Further scrutiny should have been done to get the criminals of the erroneous act. Those found guilty should have been handled according to the philosophical requirements of Utilitarianism, either by facing the death penalty or life imprisonment (Toobin, p.35). Therefore according to me the court failed to execute justice to the victims of the case, and the act undermined the democracy of the United States.
Idealism
Idealism is a collection of philosophical works which asserts the reality. It gives an association between the facts and the ideas in mind. According to idealists, an essential permanent aspect of human beings is the body and spirit. According to Pilato, the world is continuously changing and thus no, one knows what the world is. Human beings are living in a world of ideas, which is a world of absolute and unchanging truth (Toobin, p.36).
Ideally some things led to violation of democracy in the OJ Simpson trial. For instance, the case used lower standards of gauging the evidence that was available. The conditions for finding a suspect guilty in a civil case is substantially is lower than that of a criminal case. The judge in the last case for Simpson had a responsibility of determining whether the evidence available proved Simpson guilty not proving him guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Allowing that kind of jurisdiction lowered the standards of the evidence and thus going against ...