In the past few months, the popular Netflix documentary "Making a Murderer" brought nationwide scrutiny to the inter workings of the justice system. This week ESPN's 30 for 30 on the Duke Lacrosse chronicled another high profile, high stakes case that revealed crimes committed by city officials and other municipal workers. It seems that stories of miscarriages of justice and shady dealings among attorneys and police officers are all over the media lately, but what the popular phenomenon also shows is that the media plays just as large a role in the false convictions and unfairness that seems to rule the court room in recent highly publicized cases. One would expect the court system to be fair, but the bias of an individual is almost always a factor in the way a person works within a system. Ever heard of the phrase "innocent until proven guilty"? With today's technological advancements in media, it is nearly impossible to have a case that is not immediately under the public eye.

The court system was meant to allow the rights of all citizens to be exercised in an equal and fair way, but in recent cases and documentaries, this right is often denied to certain individuals. In the example of the Duke lacrosse team, a community turned against the athletes because they felt the boys got away with far too much and that they had been wrong fully placed on a pedestal over the years. For this reason the media surrounding the case, city officials, and private sector workers involved looked at the facts of the alleged crime with tainted intentions. This controversy specifically was based upon issues of race, class, and the personal agenda of a defense attorney seeking re-election. The consequences of such issues could have been the lives and futures of three boys.

What is even more concerning is the fact that these are cases under intense media scrutiny therefore there is a higher possibility that corruption could be revealed, but what about the smaller cases that go unnoticed?What about the people who can't afford expensive lawyers willing to go the extra mile for their case? Are these rare occasions or does this sort of thing happen all the time, but go unchecked?

After the credits roll and all the questions come up, people often start talking about what should be done so that such occurrences are few and far between. But is it truly the system that is broken or have such pop culture phenomenons stretched the truth to gain viewers? Or could it be a little but of both? Most importantly, if all this is true, what can we do to change it?