Question 1
The case of Crow Dog murdering Spotted Tail occurred Brule Sioux tribe in the 1880s. Crow Dog was a celebrated warrior among the Lakota diplomats who dedicated himself to making peace and defending the rights of his people. Spotted Tail was a chief who was entangled in petty jealousies from other people, competing interests and political pressures in the society. Spotted Tail had many Brule rivals who considered him as an illegitimate chief among them Crow Dog who was pissed off when he realized Spotted Tail was collecting and pocketing grazing fee from white rancher running their herds on the Indian land. On the night of August 5, 1881, Crow Dog saw Spotted Tail walking with other men, and he got out of his wagon with his rifle and shot Spotted Tail on his chest killing him. The tribal council of the community sent peacemakers to meet Crow Dog and Spotted Tail’s family to make peace. The peacemakers made arrangements for Crow Dog to pay blood money for the murder of Spotted Tail where he paid $600, few ponies and blankets. However, the federal court was not satisfied by the justice of tribal council, and Crow Dog was arrested and charged in court where he was found guilty of the murder of Spotted Tail and was sentenced to hanging. The case was appealed in the US Supreme Court which ruled out that the judicial court did not have jurisdiction over the tribal ruling; hence Crow Dog was set free.
According to the tribal justice of the Indian community, justice was served for both Crow Dog and Spotted Tail. This is because both Crow Dog’s and Spotted Tail’s families sat to make peace and Crow Dog’s family had to pay blood cash, horses and blankets to resolve this problem. Justice was served for the victim’s family as they were paid for bloodshed according to the tribal customs and to the perpetrator’s family as the wrongdoer was integrated back to the society and the Brule Sioux community was healed (Pimentel, 2010). However, Federal justice was not served because the wrongdoer should have suffered for his wrongdoings and could have suffered a death sentence for justice of Spotted Tail to prevail. In the Brule Sioux community, legal pluralism existed between the state power and the indigenous truth in society. Although the federal court had ruled against the tribal council ruling, the Supreme Court out ruled the Federal decision claiming that the indigenous law controlled. However, the Supreme Court declared that the traditional courts should handle petty crimes and leave federal justice to reign in major criminal acts.
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Question 2
People targeting is the act of enforcing regulations and laws on a particular group of people while excluding others which includes people from the targeted group who have not broken or gone against the bills. Selective enforcement occurs when the state permits police officers and prosecutors by giving them the power to decide the punishment to offer to lawbreakers or choose whether to punish the lawbreakers or not. The article “What the Data Really Says about Police and Racial Bias” by Kia Makarechi (2016) published by the Vanity Fair, 18 academic studies, legal ruling, and media investigations explain the group of people the police are targeting in the United States. The police officers were targeting more on the Black Americans and Hispanics than the White Americans. The article explains the fatal police shootings on black Americans, traffic stop and use of police force on the black Americans which indicates international racial bias in the world.
This article is an example of selective enforcement and people targeting because it shows how the USA government has given power to the police officers to punish a targeted group of people which are the Black Americans even when the Black Americans have not broken the laws. For example, in case number 8, traffic police officers were targeting black American drivers and their cars more than the cars and drivers of the White Americans. Despite the White Americans being found to transport drugs and weapons often, the officers were instructed to stop all the black American drivers and use force on them even when the drivers did not show any form of physical resistance. This indicated racial bias in the country where black Americans were affected by racism
References
Makarechi, K. (2016). What the data really says about police and racial bias. Vanity Fair. Retrieved from: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/data-police-racial-bias
Pimentel, D. (2010). Can Indigenous Justice Survive? Legal Pluralism and the Rule of Law. Harvard International Review, 32(2), 32.
