Zuniga 1

Jorge Zuniga

Professor Zumstein

English 114B

05 Mar. 2017

Project Text

Criminals. What makes a criminal? Who decides if a person is categorized as a criminal

or not? The United States justice system is established to control crime and punish the people

who violate the laws. The justice system, however does have its flaws when it comes to some

criminal cases. In some cases the justice system gives the wrong person the punishment or

simply do not have the power to do anything at all to get the right person to face the

consequences. Gillian Flynns novel, Gone Girl portrays this about the justice system with one of

the main characters named Amy. Amy tries to set up Nick for murder and even murders someone

in the process and gets away with no punishment. She manipulates the justice system to work in

her favor, showing how the justice system today does not always get everything correct and even

gets tricked in some of the criminal cases.

The justice system has a flaw of looking into the wrong things in a case which leads to

not being able to put the correct person behind bars. Criminals try to point the detectives in the

wrong direction to get away with the crime they have committed. Amy from the novel tries and

successfully gets away with the crimes she commits by leading the evidence in a completely

different direction. Even when the detectives know she has committed a murder they can not do

anything about it because of the false evidence she has gave them. She foolproofed

everything. Its ludicrous, her story, but no more ludicrous than our story. Amys basically

exploiting the sociopaths most reliable maxim. Whats that? The bigger the lie, the more they
 Zuniga 2

believe it (Flynn 390). Amy created a story so well that made her seem like the viticum rather

than the criminal that she truly was. One way this is portrayed in the modern justice system is the

OJ Simpson case, OJ was accused of murder of his ex-wife and her friend. All the evidence the

prosecutors had pointed in favor of OJ being guilty. Many points that were irrelevant to the case

were brought up to get the jury on the defenses side. The OJ Simpson case, one of our fears

has been that we will see a repeat performance of white peoples inability to identify or oppose

racial and sexually dynamics(Bulkin). However, the outcome was not one that anyone expected.

The jury decided that OJ was innocent and did not commit the crime, when everyone outside the

court believed he was completely guilty. The defense took a different approach and made the jury

look at the story of the murder in a completely different way. OJs defense brought the concern,

embedded in the psychological law, had to do with the fairness of jurors and the criminal justice

system. Was the predominantly Black jurors biased? Was Simpsons acquitted a miscarriage of

justice that was tainted by racism? Or was the system biased in bringing an innocent man to trial

and subsequent professional ruin(Fairchild). This strategy that the defense took lead them to

winning the case and and getting OJ off for murder. This shows exactly how the justice system

has flaws, because not even hard evidence could put a murder in prison for his crime. It was seen

as such a big mistake made by the Justice system by not putting OJ Simpson behind bars for the

murder he clearly did. Exemplifying how our justice system does not have the power it needs to

get the criminals were they deserve to be. Not only cant the justice system put criminals behind

bars, but always they are not always correct.

The justice system makes mistakes that can cause the wrong person to take the

punishment of someone else. One way this was seen was with traffic cameras and how they were

not of useful and caused problems. These traffic cameras were used to stop people from running
 Zuniga 3

red lights and to give them tickets by getting the information from the photo taken. However,

they had a problem with taking pictures of the car behind the one running the light. Therefore,

they would send the ticket to an innocent person a ticket for a crime they did not commit. Last

year, the Los Angeles Police Commission directed the Department to discontinue its Automated

Photo Red Light Program (APRLP), effective July 31, 2011. As a result, the Department

deactivated all the program's enforcement cameras and discontinued issuing citations for any

new violations(Photo). Taking down the traffic cameras is a reason that we know our justice

system does make mistakes and has other things that need to be fixed. Nick is an example of the

wrong person being accused from something he had nothing to do with. Nick was accused for

the murder of his wife because of false evidence that Amy left for the detectives. Being falsely

accused and being detained for something he did not do is exactly like people who got traffic

tickets for something they did not do. The detectives believe something was fishy about the

scene, It looked wrong, Gilpin continue. From the second we saw it. To be honest, the whole

thing looked staged. First of all, theres the fact that it was all centered in this one spot. Why

wasnt anything messed up anywhere but this room? Its odd(Flynn 175). Even with the

detectives believing something is was off and wrong about the scene they detained Nick and had

him as the only suspect for the case. Eventually Amy would come back home and prove the

innocence of Nick and not have him go to prison. Not only does the justice system try to

prosecute the wrong person, but always bring in evidence that does not have to do with the case

to make the defense look guilty.

Criminal cases seem to be manipulated and look for evidence that does not have to do

with the case to solve it. Nick tries to portray the good husband to the media so that he does not

look suspicious or guilty to the detectives. In doing so he does lie about things and also leaving
 Zuniga 4

information about himself to not look like a bad person. Nick says, It was my fifth lie to the

police. I was just starting(Flynn 37). His lying eventually catches up with him and everyone

believes that he did have to do something the murder of his wife. He did not tell the truth about it

which led them to believe he was guilty, but it had nothing to do with the actually case itself.

Nick is also seen guilty because of his personality in the instant when the detectives told him, I

still remember that very first night: Amys missing and you come in here, we park you in this

very room for forty-five minutes, and you looked bored. We watched you on surveillance, you

practically fell asleep( Flynn 346). The detectives used the actions and reactions of Nick to

prove him guilty when that has nothing to do with the case. The media had a big impact on

manipulating the truth to make Nick like a complete asshole and murder. This make Nick look

like criminal rather than the victim. A short story that portrays the victim as the criminal is

Breaking and Entering, by Sherman Alexie. It talks about how an Indian is portrayed as white

and how he murdered a black teenager. When he calls and tells the news station to correct this

statement he is suddenly the most hated man in Seattle (Alexie 260). This false information

makes him seem more like a criminal rather than the victim and it had nothing to with the case at

all. Also false information can come from not investigating everything thoroughly.

Information is usually always missing out of cases because the justice system does not

always getting the answers to all the questions. The detectives in Gone Girl, say they search the

abandoned mall to see if Amy went down there or to get information from the homeless, They

came back to tell Nick about it and said there was nothing down there and that it was no help.

Nick and a gang of people that are helping in the search for Amy, go during the night to look for

answers. In doing so Nick finds out Amy, wanted to buy a gun. (Flynn 117). This shows how

the detectives would have left evidence out about the missing persons case that they were
 Zuniga 5

working on. Without the help of the people they would have never figured it out and been able to

piece things together. People who help out in cases are super important to the people trying to

solve the case. Most of the times detectives will not look into all of the tips given by the people.

Leading to them missing information about the case, which leads to the case taking longer to be

solved or to not be solved at all.

The United States justice system is an important part of our countries, however it does

have some flaws that should be fixed so that things are done correctly. The justice system has got

manipulated for the benefit of the defense and left criminals out on the street when they should

have been in prison. They have also been wrong in their prosecution and gave the wrong person

a punishment on a crime they did not commit. Also irrelevant evidence has made its way in the

decision making if there was a crime committed or not, leading to victim looking like the

criminal in their case. Also, the justice system does not always give all the evidence either

because they feel like it is unnecessary or simply because they do not have the evidence. All in

all the justice system is not perfect because it make mistakes and even gets tricked into making

the wrong decision in a case.

Works Cited

Alexie, Sherman. Breaking and Entering . N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Bulkin, Ellie, and Becky Thompson. The Spectacle of Race and Gender in the O.J. Simpson

Case. Off Our Backs, vol. 24, no. 9, 1994, pp. 1023., www.jstor.org/stable/20834931

Fairchild, Halford, and Gloria Cowan. "The O.J. Simpson Trial: Challenges to Science and

Society." Journal of Social Issues, 53.3 (1997): 583-591.

Flynn, Gillian. Gone girl. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014. Print.

"Photo Red Light Information." Los Angeles Police Department Memorial Badge. N.p.,
 Zuniga 6

n.d. Web. 04 Mar. 2017.