What are the Needs of Accused Citizens

 

 

Critical Thinking on The Needs of Accused Citizens

Cassander Fadael

******- Critical Reasoning

****** State University

Dr. D****M****

July 8, 2018

 

 

Critical Thinking on The Needs of Accused Citizens

Introduction

The problem at hand is what are the needs of accused citizens in modern society. In most advanced societies including those in Europe and the United States of America there is some guarantee of fairness in the accusation of a crime usually centered around the assumption of innocence until proven guilty Lippke (2014). While these rights are guaranteed on paper there is a failure on the part of the government to address all the needs of an accused citizen legally. While an accused citizen cannot be given official punishment on an accusation there are not adequate protections in terms of the citizen’s reputation and social life, ability to make a living and professional life, and ability to continue their life as it was before the accusation was launched.  This paper shall analyze the issue of what are the needs of an accused citizen before, during, and after the legal process so that they may continue their life after the accusation. This paper assumes that said citizen is innocent and they were not legally proven to have committed the crime.

This issue of the needs of the accused will be analyzed while adhering to the scope of critical reasoning highlighting the intellectual standards of critical thinking set forth by Paul and Elder (2012). These standards of critical thinking will be used to avoid the pitfalls of egocentrism and sociocentrism. Egocentrism is defined by Paul and Elder (2012) as privileging one’s own views, and sociocentrism as privileging the views of one’s group. The relevance of this problem to my community and myself will be made clear and highlighted while adopting the core concepts of fair-mindedness. Fair-mindedness according to Paul and Elder (2012) involves an honest state of mind that is objective and does not privilege the viewer’s group or self-interest. To frame this problem critically it will be evaluated as a problem for all citizens instead of favoring accused citizens and framed using the 8 intellectual standards below.

 

Clarity/ Precision

To provide clarity on the problem of what are the needs of accused citizens and communicate the situation to those who have not been in the situation I will utilize my own experience of being accused of an aggressive sexual act. This statement of events may be considered egocentric, but it provides a vivid account on an event that could happen to any citizen. I will mention once that I am a black man and first-generation son of an immigrant and that she was a pure American White woman, but I will not continue to discuss the factor of race in this situation as to avoid sociocentrism in my argument. I was accused without physical evidence, and arrested without charges being pressed, my name was plastered over the news as being charged which later had to be changed to arrested. I was 1 semester away from medical school, and two months later after the accuser presented 3 different stories all recorded and all physical evidence pointing to nothing happening my life that my family and I sacrificed years for as a poor minority with few options was not restored. I was finally in shape after 20 years of obesity and 3 straight years of diet and exercise and self-improvement and maintained nearly straight A’s. I recorded hundreds of hours service to the community, worked three jobs, and spent late nights doing genetics research in Dr. Binninger’s lab on neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s so that I would be a published scientist in his paper. Nearly five years later my needs have been ignored and my life has never been the same.  Only now has the legal community caught up enough for me to be allowed back into school. I never got to go to medical school due to college Title IX provisions stating as Jonson and Taylor (2017) highlights that I am guilty until proven innocent. A school hearing staff stated the police investigation did not provide explicit evidence I “did not” perform the crime even if there was no evidence pointing towards the crime. The woman in charge stated that this would have only included an explicit video of the events or a complete confession from the accuser as opposed to flagrant inconsistencies in her stories or police tools such as the DNA evidence and in depth physical observation of the two of us they performed. I was told that despite vocal recordings of 3 different stories, my spotless record and contributions to the community, my complete cooperation with the police throughout the investigation (which included letting search and take what they needed without a warrant) and the dissolution of the case without charges being filed after a 2-month investigation I could not finish my last semester or return to the school and was barred from my path to medical school. Most schools at that time wouldn’t take me afterwards stating the same logic despite official police findings.

Years later in my gym I had a woman cancel her gym membership and refuse to take her free training with me because she googled my name and did not want to work with a rapist or a gym that hired a rapist. She went on to state this to every member of our front desk staff and post it on our Facebook page. A political campaign that lasted over a week before I reached out to her to educate her on the facts and stop this campaign. I then needed to reach out to every member of our staff while having deep conversations with several members who approached me afterwards. I spent over a month giving undesired speeches on the history of Cassander Fadael before my work life was made manageable, but it has never been the same. I go into such vivid detail to make clear the problem highlighted in my introduction. We all understand the needs of the victim, but we must also ask ourselves “what are the needs of the accused citizen if we are presumed innocent?”.  This story not only highlights injustice it is something that could happen to any citizen and makes clear the real dangers of ignoring the needs of the accused citizen or their right to a presumption of innocence

Accuracy/Significance

The significance of this question is that according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs we all have a set of needs and desires we wish to have fulfilled Lester (2013). These include safety needs: the need to feel safe and secure, belongingness and love needs: to form intimate relationships, Esteem needs: prestige and feeling of accomplishment, and self-actualization needs: achieving one’s full potential. Every citizen of the world civilized and not wish to accomplish these needs and so the hinderance of these needs by a false rape or aggressive sexual accusation or other life scarring accusation is a real danger to every member of society at large. A citizen’s safety can be harmed by vigilantes and their actions. Gross (2016) discusses vigilante violence in less developed South African societies and its tendency to take place in places where the government is unable or unwilling to provide protection for certain groups. This vigilante violence usually creates a negative effect of what Gross (2016) defines as forward panic in the surrounding community due to a sudden and unintentional release of fear and panic in the community. Parker and Fink (2012) performed a study on the effects of arrests and being openly gay on the profitability of famous athletes as endorsement partners for brands. The study found that Kobe Bryant’s relationships with his endorsers was evaluated after his sexual assault charge. Parker and Fink (2012) found that Tiger Woods earned $105,000,000 in 2008, but after his public infidelity accusation destroyed his “family man” image resulting in the loss of several key sponsors. Nike lost $1.3 million in profits due to keeping Woods after the public scandal and Woods lost $35 million Tepper School of Bussiness (2010).Woods was not accused of a crime, but if this is the effect of negative publicity on men of a higher social class how devastating can a felony accusation be to the life of a lower class citizen? The above studies summarize that even the rich and famous are heavily affected when their names are publicly involved in illegal or immoral action which should serve to highlight the dangers such accusations have toward the public including the average citizen’s previously defined Esteem need. If famous men can have their lives torn apart by being associated with immoral actions what chance does the poor child of an immigrant have surviving the social and professional ramifications of a felony accusation?

 

Relevance

How does this research relate to the question of what are the needs of accused citizens before, during, and after an accusation? When a citizen is accused of a crime their name is plastered all over the media. Scott (2016) performs a study of journalist objectivity and adherence to their role as a fair-minded gatekeeper using the live journalist tweets from the Oscar Pistorius trial. The study found several journalists straying from objective factual statements of developments in favor of publishing substantial levels of their individual opinions. This highlights the need of accused citizens to have some protection from professional media and other publications. No citizen after being accused of a crime or misgiving would want unverified opinion flung callously across the web. This can endanger any citizen’s ability to satisfy their need for prestige and esteem. How can a citizen move on with their life after this level of defamation?

Breadth

Breadth is defined by Paul and Elder (2012) as looking at other viewpoints and using these viewpoints to add to the objectivity of the argument. Connolly (2014) is a research article that highlights the effectiveness of social media and text messaging in college campus security and other positive applications. The study highlights the necessity to keep students safe and can be used to advocate the need to keep the general citizen safe and aware of what’s occurring in their community. Propper use of social media can help put citizens into a state of alert and prepare for any dangers the future might hold relative to the media post. To properly manage potential emergencies, the immediate delivery of information to the public is not only vital to security by using social media platforms like twitter and Facebook it can encourage user feedback that could improve the safety of the community or be imperative to the case at hand. Connolly (2014) discusses the 2007 Virginia Tech mass shootings and how in high-risk situation where speed is key it is important to be proactive instead of reactive in terms of broadcasting information to the public. This is important to the safety needs of all citizens. Safety and security as stated by Maslow above is a critical need to all humans Lester (2013)

Depth/Logic

The question of logic in critical reasoning analyzes whether the analysis makes logical sense. The above paper creates a sound analysis of why it is important to analyze the needs of accused citizens before, during, and after the accusation. The above analysis analyzes the need for all citizens to satisfy their needs according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. The above analysis addresses the effects of public accusations using peer-reviewed research of celebrities as well as a first person view of a falsely accused citizen. We also have gone in depth with the discussion to include the needs of citizens who are not in the place of being an accused citizen and their need for safety and security. This analysis engages an understanding that it is being written to benefit all citizens. While it is being written to ensure the rights of all citizens in case they are accused it is also important to address the importance of safety especially in terms of emergency management of those in the community surrounding the accusation.

Conclusion

The above paper analyzed the problem of what are the needs of accused citizens before, during, and after an accusation. I strived to maintain a fair-mind to add to the validity of the argument. I used the core concept of fair-mindedness in selecting my peer-reviewed source material while keeping an open mind to select source material from multiple viewpoints of the stated problem. I utilized the intellectual standards of critical reasoning in evaluating my source material to maintain an objective analysis that adhered to the purpose of the writing to bring attention to the needs of accused citizen. By utilizing breadth to address every point of view I addressed potential concerns of those who may misinterpret addressing the needs of accused citizens as depriving the safety needs of citizens who have not been accused but have a chance of being in the same position.  The sources I found accurately supported the logic behind my claim that the act of being accused damages the life of a citizen and the lack of protection from the government can lead to drastically negative consequences for every member of the community. After comparing the source material and critical reasoning to address multiple viewpoints the needs of the accused are obvious. An accused citizen needs to be protected as if they were innocent of the accusation. The steps by the media to protect and inform the community must be limited to what is neccesary to accomplish those things only. An accused citizen needs to be able to continue their life as if the accusation never occurred both professionally and socially. Any citizen can be accused falsely, and so steps need to be taken on behalf of all citizens to change litigation to satisfy the need of the accused citizen to continue their life and satisfy the levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. Questions that remain include the following: How can we take steps to address the needs of the accused so that they are treated humanely during accusation as well as continue their lives afterwards in case of innocence. What level of change would this require: legal? Political? Constitutional changes? How would this apply to parts of the world with lower protections than the United States’ presumption of innocence or similar guarantees in parallel modern societies?

 

 

 

 

References

Connolly, Maureen. (2014). Community Alert: Using Text Messaging and Social Media to Improve Campus Emergency Planning. Community College Journal, 84(2), 38-42.

Gross, M. (2016). Vigilante violence and “forward panic” in Johannesburg’s townships. Theory and Society, 45(3), 239-263.

Johnson, K., & Taylor, S. (2017, March 03). Students accused of campus sexual assault are now guilty until proved innocent. Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-johnson-taylor-campus-sexual-assault-20170303-story.html

Lester, D. (2013). Measuring Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Psychological Reports, 113(1), 15-17.

Lippke, R. (2014). The Prosecutor and the Presumption of Innocence. Criminal Law and Philosophy, 8(2), 337-352.

Parker, H., & Fink, J. (2012). Arrest Record or Openly Gay: The Impact of Athletes’ Personal

Lives on Endorser Effectiveness. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 21(2), 70-79.

Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2012). Critical thinking: Tools for taking charge of your learning and your
life (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Scott, K. (2016). Twitter and the Oscar Pistorius trial. Journal of African Media Studies, 8(3),

397-411.

Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University. (2010). Economic value of celebrity endorsement: Tiger Woods’ impact on sales of Nike golf ball. Retrieved from http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/derdenge/TW ExecutiveSummary.pdf