Generally, culture influences the beliefs and behaviors of individuals in any given society. Culture refers to the customs, ideas, and social behavior of a particular society. It is also important to realize that culture has also influenced the criminal justice system, particularly in the United States. The United States is actually a melting pot of many cultures. As such, the behaviors and actions of people from different cultures may be influenced by their distinct cultural ideas and customs. In realization of the role of culture in influencing the behavior of individuals, defense attorneys seek to invoke culture as a way of ensuring that their clients get a fair trial. Cultural defense is actually common in the United States criminal justice system. Based on the influx of immigrants from various regions of the world, such as Asia and the Middle East, the criminal justice system has faced a significant dilemma (Renteln, 2014). Cultural defense is basically a claim that the courts should consider relevant features of an immigrant defendant’s cultural background, particularly when ascertaining guilt or determining appropriate penalties. Therefore, there is need to create legal space for cultural defense in order to effectively track individual blameworthiness and provide a useful forum for intercultural, future oriented learning.
However, the dilemma lies on whether the United States should actually permit immigrant defendant to use culture as a means of mitigate his criminal liability. Essentially, defense attorneys usually use cultural background as partial defense to show that the defendant is less culpable while committing a particular crime, and thus should be given a lesser charge. However, it is important to realize that the application of cultural defense across the United States varies widely. Kong Moua’s case of kidnapping and rape of a lady working in a college presents an instance where cultural defense was used to reduce the defendant’s penalty (Oliver, 1988). This highlights the various ways in which the criminal law rests not just on universal principles, but also upon the specific cultural understandings of the dominant group.
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Based on the article on cultural defense, I have learnt that indeed, an individual’s culture can be used as defense in a criminal case. Kong Moua’s culture played a significant role in ensuring that he got a lesser charge. According to American law, Kong Moua would have been charged for kidnapping and rape, a charge that would have attracted a hefty penalty. When his defense lawyer introduced literature documenting the Hmong marital customs, a tribe Moua belongs to, he was able to see him get a lesser charge. After reading the material, the judge decided to sentence Moua to 120 days in jail, and fined him $1000. Of the $1000 fine he paid, $900 went to the victim as reparations. This was a far lesser charge, compared to the prison term that Moua could get for kidnapping and rape in the United States. As such, Moua benefitted from cultural defense, which is a rare but increasingly employed legal tactic in the United States.
According to the concept of cultural defense, an individual who is reared in a foreign culture should not be held fully accountable for a conduct that violates the United States law but would actually be acceptable in the culture where he grew up. However, I have realized that cultural defense generally helps to reduce the charge the defendant faces (Volpp, 1994). Basically, the huge influx of immigrants drawn from different cultures around the world has led to the popularity of cultural defense, as a tactic for mitigating sentencing in criminal cases. The immigration has actually introduced to the American criminal justice system such foreign customs as Hmong “marriage by capture” and the Japanese “parent-child suicide”.
From the article, I realized that European immigrants’ need for cultural defense is very minimal. I learnt that this is so because the laws of the European immigrants’ homelands spring from the same roots as United States laws. Additionally, European immigrants have migrated in large number for many years and have been able to assimilate rapidly into the dominant American culture.
Some of the immigrants who have benefitted from the legal concept of cultural defense include Africans, Asians, Vietnamese, and Mexicans. Most of the criminal cases involving such immigrants have received lesser penalties by having their sentences mitigated. This is because their actions have been found to be motivated by a valid custom in their cultures. Admitting cultural defense into the justice system is important in delivering justice. In a defense trial, cultural defense plays a significant role because it gives the juries the ability to ignore the law and do what is actually fair. For instance, a defense attorney was able to win acquittal for two youths of Korean descent who were charged with rape by demonstrating that, under Korean cultural standards, the women had tacitly consented to having sex by remaining silent and by assisting in disrobing.
In conclusion, it is demonstrable that culture can influence the application of criminal laws in a country. Additionally, criminal law not only rests on the universal principles, but also upon the particularistic cultural understandings of the dominant group. Thus, partial cultural defense can play a significant role in the delivery of justice. It is however important to realize that cultural defense should be understood in the context of the value conflicts between majorities and minorities. It should also be addressed through extensive discussion, rather than the coercive imposition of the values of one side on the other. If considered, cultural defense can promote fairness in the criminal justice system.
References
Oliver, M. (July 15, 1988). Immigrant Crimes: Cultural Defense--a Legal Tactic. Los Angeles Times, http://articles.latimes.com/1988-07-15/news/mn-7189_1_cultural-defense
Volpp, L. (1994). (Mis) Identifying culture: Asian women and the cultural defense. Harv. Women's LJ, 17, 57.
Renteln, A. D. (2014). What Do We Have to Fear from the Cultural Defense? . Criminal Law and Cultural Diversity, 177.
