CANVA.COM
ISSUE NO. 15
Fall 2015
PORTFOLIO ST.EDWARDS UNIVERSITY
VICTORIA MAYORGA: THE BIG IMPROVEMENT
THE GAME CHANGERS An exclusive interview with visionaries, innovators and leaders that changed how we look in the world.
Elizabeth Anne Eakman St. Edward’s University 3001 South Congress Ave. Austin, TX 78704 Dear Professor Eakman. The purposes of Rhetoric and Composition II was to look at different forms of communication and gain skills in rhetoric, composition, research, critical reasoning, moral reasoning and civil discourse. We learned to identify different forms of rhetoric by evaluating and identifying the elements of an argument, such as looking for author credibility and different rhetorical strategies. We studied how to compose drafts and evaluate our own, and each others’ work for revision and editing. We gained competency in research through the composition of our final paper, in which we had to formulate a research question, learn how to research data and find reliable resources, and how to place that information in our reports. We gained knowledge in critical reading by looking at the weaknesses and effectiveness of different sources and their arguments. We also learned moral reasoning and civil discourse by finding truth in our own and each others research and looking at how others communicate their viewpoints. After looking at the skills that were required for Rhetoric and Composition II, I feel that I have became a stronger and more confident writer. I have learned the how to identify arguments by looking at different forms of argumentation and analyzing different works. This is evident from the rhetoric analysis I wrote at the beginning of the year on Bryan Stevenson’s book Just Mercy, in which I analyzed how Bryan was able to use the “rhetorical appeals of pathos, logos and ethos to enhance his argument on racial decimation.” I learned composition by attending the peer-editing session that we had in class and forming plans to develop my papers. These plans were outlined in my research proposal, where I gave an outline on the sequential approach that I followed throughout the development of my research paper. The fourth skill I gained competency in was in research. During the research project, I looked at several different
sources to enhance the argument in my paper. One source that I included in every writing assignment this year was our freshman studies book Just Mercy. This book helped me find statistics for my work. For instance, in my research paper I used statistical evidence to enhance my argument on the negative effects of capital punishment on the mentally ill. One of which states, “1314 men, women, children, and mentally ill people have been shot, hanged, asphyxiated, lethally injected, and electrocuted by States and the federal government”. The fifth and sixth skills, moral reasoning and civil discourse, I gained competency in by working with my fellow peers on editing and revising and by looking at other points of views to find the true value in my work. After looking over the rhetorical analysis I wrote at the beginning of the year and comparing it to my final research paper, I can definitely say that I have gained a better understanding of the components of writing. I noticed in my analysis that I was not confident in my argument. I made two separate arguments, one that praised Bryan Stevenson and his use of appropriate rhetorical appeals, and another that claimed his writing was bias against other races. These arguments did not correlate with each other and they made my paper weak. This was evident when I stated, “he uses strong emotional appeals to enhance his argument and creates a sympathy towards the racially discriminated by providing details and stories that represent racial discrimination. However, Stevenson’s argument is flawed by his racial bias towards his own race.” By making two separate arguments the reader may find my point of view vague and dismiss my argument. In my research paper, I learned that I need to focus on one argument and work towards finding resources and evidence to make my point of view stronger. The only argument that I focused on in my research paper is that there is a “lack of adequate legal protection for the mentally ill in the American criminal justice system [that] has lead to the deaths of many innocent men and women who suffer from mental illnesses”. I then took this argument and found appropriate sources that supported my argument on mental illness and used it to develop my final research paper. I also learned how to make specific arguments. In my analysis I looked at Bryan Stevenson’s arguments on the “discrimination of race” in the death penalty. This was incorrect because Stevenson
looks at more than just the discrimination of race, but goes deeper in the topic by arguing that race plays a role in unfair counseling and unjust death penalty sentences. In my research paper, I made a specific argument against the capital punishment, such as the “lack of adequate legal protection for the mentally ill,� and found support to correlate with my point of view. By doing this I was able to provide my audience with subject and details that directly related to my thesis, instead of focusing on a broad topic like rhetorical analysis. . The threshold concept for this class was that authors have a variety of ways to compose their work. They use all kinds of devices to prove their point of view and get their point across. Now every time I look at a new text, I analyze the context of the work and the purpose the author was trying to make. Before this class, I would only look at the big picture of what they were saying, not why they were saying it. I can honestly say that I understand the components of writing much more than when I began this class. I know that I can take all of the concepts I learned this year and use them in my future classes. I have a long way to go in my college career and I feel that this class has shown me how to develop plans and produce a well written paper. Sincerely Victoria Mayorga
Victoria Mayorga Beth Eakman Re FSTY 1313.07 Fall 2015 Rhetorical Analysis
The RACE for Equality
Throughout history, there has been a great deal of controversy regarding whether or not the death penalty is an ethical and fair form of punishment. Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, is an advocate against the injustices found within the capital punishment system. In his book, Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson makes quite a few specific arguments against the death penalty; one in particular is the discrimination of race. He uses the rhetorical appeals of pathos, logos and ethos to enhance his argument. However, his argument falters by only offering a one-sided point of view.
Throughout the text, Stevenson provides his audience with a strong ethical appeal to develop his argument against the death penalty. In the first chapter of the text, he gives a detailed description of his life and career, and expands his credibility through his educational background and professional practice. As a Harvard Law student and a graduate at the Kennedy school of Government, Stevenson focused on “developing the skills to quantify and deconstruct discrimination and inequality� (12). In his early career,
Stevenson held an internship in Atlanta Georgia with the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee, where he was exposed to the injustices of the death penalty. He eventually left Atlanta and started his own nonprofit law firm in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where he was able to build his profile and gain respect in his law profession. His qualifications are important to the effectiveness of his argument because the audience can infer that he is a refutable source that can be trusted. Stevenson also effectively uses ethos in his text by sharing with his audience his personal experiences with racial discrimination. He grew up in poor, segregated community were “confederate flags were proudly displayed throughout the region” and the “black people were marginalized and excluded” (13). Not only does Stevenson share his childhood experiences with discrimination, he also includes instances in his career where he is subjected to racial discrimination; such as when he is unnecessarily stripped searched by a racist officer during a cliental visit (195). These personal witnesses to racial discrimination are effective uses of ethos in his text because they make him more relatable to his claim and improve his argument. In relation to ethos, Stevenson also builds on his credibility by using logos to appeal to his audience and to backup his claim against the death penalty.
Stevenson effectively uses logos in his argument that the death penalty is racially discriminatory when he sufficiently provides his audience with evidence. As a lawyer, Stevenson shares his knowledge of racial discrimination in the the American court system; mostly though in the State courts of Alabama where he does most of his cases. He points out that at one point “all forty elected district attorneys in Alabama were white” revealing the discriminatory past that surrounds the Alabama courts system (58). He even provides evidence that the American system as a whole is subjected by discrimination by saying that “the constitution does not require that racial minorities…to actually serve on juries” (59). These facts contribute to his argument against the death penalty because they raise awareness that the places wrongfully condemning the colored can not be trusted. Stevenson also uses the appeal of logos to organize his ideas and make accurate connections to his claim. He takes his audience on a step by step
journey through Walter’s prosecution process and provides the audience with the exact dates and court files that relate to his case. As a reader, one would know that Walter’s execution “was scheduled for 12:01 on August 18” (81) and that circuit judge, Thomas B Norrtan JR. “ORDERED, ADJUDGED and DEGREED” Stevenson’s appeal on May 19, 1992 (206). These details are important to his argument against the death penalty because they can be backed up and acknowledged as appropriate evidence towards his claim. They also enhance his rhetorical appeal of pathos because they prove that he is a credible author who can be trusted. Out of all three rhetorical appeals, Stevenson contributes many of his arguments to pathos. He is very talented in expressing his ideas, thus allowing the reader to dwell within his text and feel what he is saying.
Just Mercy is a strong, emotional text that makes one see things from a deeper and meaningful perspective. Stevenson develops his ideas by using pathos; sharing with his audience descriptive situations in which racial discrimination in the death penalty is prevalent. The main case in Stevenson’s memoir involves an African American man named Walter, who is falsely accused of murder, and is mistreated by the American Criminal Justice System because of his skin color. Stevenson is the main lawyer in Walter’s case and witnesses first hand of the racial discrimination that follows Walter in his fight for freedom against execution. Appealing to the emotions of his audience, Stevenson provides his readers with appalling stories that depict the racial discrimination seen in Walter’s case. When Walter is arrested he is greatly mistreated by the police authorities, including the head sheriff of his community, who reportedly tells him, “We’re going to keep all you niggers from running around with these white girls. I ought to take you and hang you…” (48). This statement in Stevenson’s text is emotionally provoking and exposes right away that Walter was accused based off of his skin color. Walter’s trial is continuously threatened by racial discriminated acts and he finds himself stuck with the punishment of the death penalty. Stevenson provokes anger in his audience when he describes the nearly “all-white jury” that convicts Walter as guilty. Indicating that Walter was “shocked, paralyzed” and all he could feel was
“seething anger” towards his conviction (65). One of the most heart wrenching and discriminatory parts of Walter’s case was during his retrial in Baldwin County, Alabama. When officers refused to let Walter’s friends and family into the court room, even refusing to let Stevenson in before he reveals that he is the defense attorney (174). This racially discriminatory act has an emotional impact on the story and influences the idea that the death penalty is racially injustice. Throughout the text, Stevenson continues to conjure many more emotions that evoke the reader to feel sympathy towards Walter and allows people to truly understand the social injustice that the death penalty exposes to the colored community. His use of pathos contributes greatly to the success of his argument against the death penalty. However, his emotional responses are very one-sided and that limits his persuasion in his argument.
Although Stevenson makes some credible claims on racism against the death penalty, he does not offer another point of view from someone else’s perspective. This limits the effectiveness of his argument to readers who do not share his same beliefs. It is obvious through his text and dialogue that Stevenson believes the white race is the main culprit in wrongfully condemning the black race to execution. He makes a handful of comments against the white race, using terms such as “white majorities” and “whitesupremacy” (60-61). However, by only focusing on the racial discrimination made by the white race, it causes him to sound bias against the white culture. Stevenson also creates a one-sided belief in favor of his own race by allowing his audience to believe that the African American culture is the only race discriminated against. He provides evidence to this idea by focusing his statistics and comments towards the African American community; such as when he states “one in every three black male babies born in this century is expected to be incarcerated” (15) and also when he says “Most hundred or so death row prisoner who had been sentenced to execution…were black. (53) These examples of evidence do support racial discrimination within the death penalty, but they do not portray discrimination among other races besides his own. The narrow subject and views of Bryan’s argument is a huge flaw when it comes to persuading his audience that the death penalty is racially bias, because it limits outside perspectives and it
puts the white culture and African American culture at odds against each other. Thus, this may cause audience members from the white race and those outside of the African American culture to dismiss his argument.
Stevenson’s argument that the death penalty is racially bias is effectively brought about through his use of ethos, pathos and logos throughout his text. His background and education create credibility to his argument and allow the audience to see him as a trustworthy speaker. He builds on his credibility by providing accurate and sufficient evidence and by taking his readers step by step through Walter’s trial process. He uses strong emotional appeals to enhance his argument and creates a sympathy towards the racially discriminated by providing details and stories that represent racial discrimination. However, Stevenson’s argument is flawed by his racial bias towards his own race. Overall, Stevenson provides a strong base in his argument that there is racial discrimination in the death penalty, but limits his argument due to his very narrow perspective.
Victoria Mayorga Beth Eakman Re FSTY 1313.07 Fall 2015 Research Paper Mental Illness and the Death Penalty
America is a country founded on justice. The constitution states: “we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice” (preamble). However, by wrongfully condemning inmates to execution, capital punishment has eliminated the American value of justice. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, “1314 men, women, children, and mentally ill people have been shot, hanged, asphyxiated, lethally injected, and electrocuted by States and the federal government” (1). The mentally ill are one of the most common masses affected by the unjust capital punishment system. The lack of adequate legal protection for the mentally ill in the American criminal justice system has lead to the deaths of many innocent men and women who suffer from mental illnesses. Though the U.S. government has established laws in the criminal justice system to protect the mentally ill from unjust incarceration, the laws are only a base line and do not offer full protection for all mentally ill conditions. In other words, the person being convicted of the crime must be able to understand the proceedings and courtroom procedures, comprehend the charges and punishments against them, cooperate with counsel by recalling events and coming up with strategies, testify on their own behalf, and challenge prosecutors. Despite these regulations, defendants with mental illness are often still
considered competent. Recent studies, such as a report conducted by the American Civil Liberty Union, shows that the reason for this is, “the competency test as applied by courts is low bar and courts or juries routinely find that severely mentally ill defendants, including capital defendants, meet the basic test of competency” (“Mental Illness and the Death Penalty”). That is to say, any individual that has a decent level of judgment and social skills can still be considered guilty based on the guidelines given by the United States courts. Not only is the competency test inaccurate, but determining a defendant’s competency is a difficult process and often leads to further convictions of mentally ill inmates. In determining whether or not a person is presumed incompetent, courts must find clear and convincing evidence that proves the defendant is capable of following court proceedings. This is a problem for the mentally ill because most defendants who suffer from mental illnesses either have the capacity to make some decisions on their own, which satisfies the court’s ruling of competency, or they do not understand their own mental and physical conditions. According to the Maryland People’s Law Library, “every adult is competent and is best able to pursue her own best interest, until she is proven otherwise” (“Competency and incompetency”, 12). However, when considering certain mental disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and mental retardation, this is not always a clear cut explanation because “a person who is in the early stages of a progressive disease like Alzheimer’s disease, or one who has mental retardation, mental illness, or a head injury may well be competent enough to express her opinions about certain matters” (“Competency and incompetency”,13). Nevertheless, the competency test only takes present mental capacity into consideration, so these disorders may have affected their decisions at the time of the crime but not during the proceedings. The Competency to Stand Trial Law is a fundamental problem in capital punishment because it has such a low standard for determining competency and requires law officials to go through a difficult process. Therefore, many inmates in capital cases, whether they are mentally ill or not, are deemed competent enough to carry out court proceedings. The competency test only makes up half of the proceedings, so inmates who are found competent can still
have a chance at the insanity release; however, the insanity release is only applicable in certain states, and, even then, inmates who suffer from mental illness can still end up on death row. The insanity plea was first used in the United States in 1843, in the McNaughton case. It has since been used in various criminal cases in determining a person of a crime not guilty on basis of insanity. Theoretically, the insanity plea was created to ensure that people who suffer from mental illnesses do not get punished for unjust reasoning. However, the insanity plea is very rarely used, and mistakes are often made in determining what constitutes as insanity, as “insanity itself is difficult to define, and the circumstances in which insanity can be used to excuse criminal responsibility are difficult to characterize” (“The Insanity Defense”, 1). In insanity cases, defense attorneys must prove that their clients were in a delusional state of mind, meaning that the inmate could not distinguish between right or wrong at the time he/she committed the crime, or he/she did not have control of his/her actions. This is very difficult for most defendants because no one can really prove that a criminal was insane at the time of the act. Psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, substance abuse induced psychotic disorders and medical induced disorders often lead to psychotic episodes. When a person with a psychotic disorder has an episode, the person becomes unsure about what is real and what isn’t, and usually experiences hallucinations, delusions, off-the-wall behavior, chaotic speech, and incoherency. Out of these mental illnesses, schizophrenia is the most commonly seen disorder in mentally ill death penalty cases. According to an online report written by the Pacific Med Research Institute, “there is not a standardized schizophrenic test available that gives practitioners the ability to diagnose this disorder based on physical factors” (“What is involved in a Schizophrenia Test?”, 1). Therefore, when defense attorneys call phycologists to determine the sanity of a mentally ill defendant during a case, “it is hard for them to prove that the defendant was insane at the exact time of the act” (“What is involved in a Schizophrenia Test?”). The insanity plea offers little protection to the mentally ill and, as a result, capital case defendants often suffer from failed recognition of insanity and are sentenced to the death penalty.
The insanity plea and pardon from incompetency ruling are both surrounded by controversy because of their instability in the American criminal justice system. In a report conducted in the American Journal of Psychiatry, several lawyers studied fifteen prisoners on death row and came to a conclusion that “many condemned individuals probably suffer unrecognized severe psychiatric, neurological, and cognitive disorders” (Lewis Dorothy et. al 838). The lack of adequate legal protection for inmates who suffer from mental illnesses has led to the conviction of many mentally ill men and women for capital crimes and sentenced to the death penalty. It is unjust to sentence the mentally ill to death when they suffer from conditions that affect their judgments and behaviors. It is in America’s foundation that all citizens have to justice and equality. Laws regarding the mentally ill and death row do not provide justice for the mentally ill, and as a consequence “5-10 percent of death row executions involve inmates with a mental illness” (“Mental Illness and the Death Penalty”). In order to obtain the American value of justice that America is founded on, it is necessary that the Unites States Court system change its policies regarding competency and insanity. As Bryan Stevenson, director of the Equal Justice Initiative, states in Just Mercy, “the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.” (289). Capital punishment has led to the privation of justice in the American court system and something needs to be done to get it back, otherwise the mentally ill will continue to suffer from unjust executions and the loss of innocent lives will endure forever.
Works Cited American Civil Liberty Union, comp. "Mental Illness and the Death Penalty." Mental Illness and the Death Penalty May 5, 2009 Introduction (2009): n. pag. Web. 17 Nov. 2015. Equal Justice Initiative, comp. "Death Penalty." EJI. Equal Justice Initiative, 2014. Web. 17 Nov. 2015. Lewis, Dorothy Otnow, Jonathon H. Pincus, Arilyn Feldman, Lori Jackson, and Barbara Bard. "Psychiatric, Neurological, and Psychoeducational Characteristics of 15 Death Row Inmates in the United States.": American Journal of Psychiatry: Vol 143, No 7. American Psychiatric Association, 25 Oct. 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. Maryland People’s Law Library. "Competency and Incompetency”. Peoples-Law. Springer Reference. (n.d.): 12-15. Web. 1 Nov. 2015. "The Insanity Defense: History and Background." Thomson Reuters Business, 2013. Web. 1 Nov. 2015. Lewis, Dorothy Otnow, Jonathon H. Pincus, Arilyn Feldman, Lori Jackson, and Barbara Bard. "Psychiatric, Neurological, and Psychoeducational Characteristics of 15 Death Row Inmates in the United States.": American Journal of Psychiatry: Vol 143, No 7. American Psychiatric Association, 25 Oct. 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. Pacific Med Institute. "What Is Involved in a Schizophrenia Test? “Pacific Institute of Medical Research." Pacific Medical Research Institute, 09 Sept. 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. Stevenson, Bryan. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. Spiegel & Gr au, 2014. 186-
203. Print. US Const. pmbl. Print.