Introduction
The Cable News Network (CNN) is an American multinational cable channel specializing in the news. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, CNN became the first all-news television channel that provided 24-hour news coverage. A great variety of documentaries and videos, regional expertise, high quality of broadcasting, attention to accuracy and consumers’ needs, and innovations in servicing are among CNN’s major competitive advantages. However, it is essential to admit that any news agency heavily relies on its legal correspondents who determine its success, and CNN is not an exception.
Discussion
Joey Jackson is one of CNN’s legal correspondents – to be precise, he is a legal analyst. As a nationally-recognized criminal defense attorney and the founder of his own law firm, Joey Jackson Law, PLLC., Jackson “has built an outstanding career as a trial lawyer representing clients who have fallen into high-stakes personal and professional crises, as well as those who are average citizens in need of his fierce and benevolent counsel” (CNN par. 2). In 2013, Jackson was recruited by CNN as a legal analyst and an insightful contributor whose political commentary and in-depth knowledge helps perceive a wide range of both internal and external issues. Besides CNN, Jackson partnered with other networks, including NBC, ABC, In Session, Fox Business, MSNBC, Court TV, and Fox News.
It goes without saying that there are multiple influential cases covered by Joey Jackson, however, one of the recent cases that attracted substantial public attention relates to the ability of the police to use deadly force. According to Jackson, the 1991 statute of the Supreme Court clearly states that the use of deadly force by police officers is justified when there is an immediate threat to their lives and health and the well-being of others (Police Shootings: When is Deadly Force Justified?). However, the use of force should be an officer’s last option when other measures of restriction are unavailable. At the same time, in order to consider whether a shooting was justified, courts should ask three basic questions: Was anyone facing an immediate threat of death or serious physical injury? Was the threat used proportionate to the threat posed? Did the officer act reasonably? (Police Shootings: When is Deadly Force Justified?).
However, reasonability is always a source of debates and various interpretations on the basis of people’s individual perceptions of the situation. On the one hand, policemen state that legal protection against deadly force is essential as it allows them to do their job safely. On the other hand, according to Jackson, the misinterpretation of the potential threat that can justify the use of deadly force frequently happened within the framework of racism and discrimination.
The case covered by Jackson refers to social unrest related to the police’s shooting and the use of physical force by officers that led to the killing of African Americans, including Rayshard Brooks, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, George Floyd, and many others. There is a considerable number of individuals who believe that the police use force unreasonably when there is no obvious threat to officers’ lives and physical health. Moreover, seeing that the victims of police brutality are mainly minorities, it becomes clear that the use of force may be regarded as an instrument of racism applied for the demonstration of white supremacy. Thus, it is logical that the police’s justification of deadly force, along with the legal protection of unjust actions, resulted in protests against police brutality and discrimination.
At the same time, the coverage of police brutality and society’s response is controversial. On the one hand, there are multiple articles and news videos dedicated to police brutality that demonstrate the disparities in the use of force on the basis of suspected and targeted individuals’ race. On the other hand, people’s protests and riots are frequently presented in a negative way, regardless of their rationale. From a personal perspective, the current situation has insignificant differences from the past one when Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote to clergymen to prove that non-violent demonstrations against the violation of Blacks’ human rights were genuinely peaceful and inevitable. In other words, in the present day, the media focuses on people’s responses and their characteristics, emphasizing the presence of violence, rather than its reasons, including police brutality.
Conclusion
From a legal perspective, the use of deadly force by police is a source of interpretations. According to Joey Jackson, there is the vague legal language associated with this issue (Police Shootings: When is Deadly Force Justified?). The legal analyst does not deny the possibility of police brutality being legally justified in the case of its inappropriateness, and I agree with him. In particular, I do not see any sufficient counterarguments to the statement that policemen may be guided by personal beliefs in white superiority and use force against minorities deliberately, knowing that there are legally protected and there can be multiple interpretations of their actions that allow them to avoid punishment.
At the same time, I think that the three questions provided by Jackson are highly reasonable and applicable, however, they are not entirely used by courts in relation to racial minorities, and policemen’s actions are justified in the majority of cases.
Works Cited
CNN. “Joey Jackson: About.” CNN. Web.
“Police Shootings: When is Deadly Force Justified?” CNN. Web.