When fame becomes a driving force to make decisions in society, criminal behavior turns to be an unintended consequence. Chicago has a reputation for various criminal activities, shootings, corruption and violations of human rights. Chicago always gets top positions in the charts. Luckily, most of those criminals are caught and quickly sentenced to an appropriate penalty. However, when it comes to the case of people who have a certain fame, things become more complicated. Often, the trials are postponed and the time it takes for juries and judges make a decision becomes longer. As a result, the defendant who is a celebrity or a political figure avoids some of his charges. Robert Kelly, Rod Blagojevich and Orenthal James ("O.J.") Simpson are …show more content…
It becomes both physically and psychologically much more challenging when the decision is being made for a famous social or political figure because jury’s one decision will change the way that society sees that particular famous person. Their decision has the power to shape the way that the person’s lifelong career will form. The idea of making a decision for a famous person jeopardizes the truthfulness of the final decision. It becomes questionable if the jury made a decision which is reasonable in light of the evidence and the law (Bornstein, NYU School of Law). There is a psychological pressure on juries while making an important decision. The decision of juries in R. Kelly’s, Rod Blagojevich’s and O. J. Simpsons’ cases are partially a result of a psychological pressure. Although the pressure was on different trials with defendants who were nationally well-recognized and the case was widely published by the media, the ways that the pressure affected the juries were almost the same in all the cases. A study conducted by Dion, Bersheid and Walster found that defendants with a higher socioeconomic status are expected to be of higher morality (Kutys, 8). A survey that was done around various jurors concluded that people with fame are expected less likely to commit a crime than those without fame. This can easily be linked with all the cases. The public was surprised after O. J. Simpson’s, Rod Blagojevich’s and R. Kelly’s accusations (Kingkade, The Huffington Post). A sportsmen like Simpson, who has achieved a lot in his life through football, a politician like Blagojevich, who has always publicly interacted with the citizens and earned their trust and a singer like Kelly, who has won the hearts of many Americans with his sacred songs could not simply be accused of something that the population would never think about and expect from them (Serico, Today). The