Whitey Ford
08-14-2019, 06:55 AM
Yeah. Put more niggers on the jury so that dindu cop killer can walk. Great idea.
Racism in Jury Selections a National Issue
Regardless of the truth of that case from Middleman’s past, we know that American prosecutors frequently and casually send Black potential jurors packing, and make absurd excuses for doing so.
In one recent case, former Cobb County, Georgia District Attorney Vic Reynolds defended one of his assistant prosecutors for obtaining robbery convictions in a case after striking six Black jurors and only three white jurors.
Regarding one struck juror, the unnamed prosecutor justified it by telling the judge, “it was actually gold teeth. I think it was his entire mouth. I don’t believe that is race-related.” (On the contrary, gold teeth are not uncommonly used to caricature Black people in pop media, and adding them to characters to make them seem more “Black” has been likened to minstrel shows.)
The discrimination has been not just scattered, but systemic.
Across the country, “race-neutral” justifications such as “failure to make eye contact,” seeming “bored,” having had a divorce, or being a social worker have all reportedly been used to justify striking Black jurors.
The discrimination has been not just scattered, but systemic. In 1987, Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Jack McMahon made a video that taught prosecutors nationwide how to keep Black people off juries while feigning race-neutrality. In 1988, the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court lamented that, despite the US Supreme Court nominally banning racist jury strikes in Batson v. Kentucky, the “race-neutral” justification framework it created “virtually insulate[s] a prosecutor’s use of the peremptory challenge to exclude jurors.”
Racism in jury selections is not only inherently wrong, but also leads directly to racially biased criminal justice outcomes. One 2012 study found that all-white juries in Florida convicted Black defendants 16 percent more often white defendants—“a gap that was almost eliminated when at least one member of the jury pool was black.”
https://filtermag.org/prosecutors-black-people-juries/
https://i.imgur.com/2eHKS0F.jpg
Racism in Jury Selections a National Issue
Regardless of the truth of that case from Middleman’s past, we know that American prosecutors frequently and casually send Black potential jurors packing, and make absurd excuses for doing so.
In one recent case, former Cobb County, Georgia District Attorney Vic Reynolds defended one of his assistant prosecutors for obtaining robbery convictions in a case after striking six Black jurors and only three white jurors.
Regarding one struck juror, the unnamed prosecutor justified it by telling the judge, “it was actually gold teeth. I think it was his entire mouth. I don’t believe that is race-related.” (On the contrary, gold teeth are not uncommonly used to caricature Black people in pop media, and adding them to characters to make them seem more “Black” has been likened to minstrel shows.)
The discrimination has been not just scattered, but systemic.
Across the country, “race-neutral” justifications such as “failure to make eye contact,” seeming “bored,” having had a divorce, or being a social worker have all reportedly been used to justify striking Black jurors.
The discrimination has been not just scattered, but systemic. In 1987, Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Jack McMahon made a video that taught prosecutors nationwide how to keep Black people off juries while feigning race-neutrality. In 1988, the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court lamented that, despite the US Supreme Court nominally banning racist jury strikes in Batson v. Kentucky, the “race-neutral” justification framework it created “virtually insulate[s] a prosecutor’s use of the peremptory challenge to exclude jurors.”
Racism in jury selections is not only inherently wrong, but also leads directly to racially biased criminal justice outcomes. One 2012 study found that all-white juries in Florida convicted Black defendants 16 percent more often white defendants—“a gap that was almost eliminated when at least one member of the jury pool was black.”
https://filtermag.org/prosecutors-black-people-juries/
https://i.imgur.com/2eHKS0F.jpg