Systemic Moral Cowardice

Journalist Bob Paynter probably deserves consideration for a Pulitzer Prize for his exhaustive, incisive and well-documented series Justice Blinded: Race, Drugs and Our Legal System [Ed: See also Review finds white drug defendants 55% more likely to have charges reduced]. He has, in an amazingly detailed manner, proven what some of us have known all along: America's so-called system of justice is broken... in far too many instances it doesn't work when it comes to fairness and parity for minorities or the poor.

The problem is that, for the most part, the legal system is merely reflecting the basic unfairness and disparities minorities face in other aspects of American life and culture: Jobs, delivery of healthcare services, spending for education... you name it, the list could on and on...

For decades it's been a known, proven and verifiable fact that Blacks, Whites and Hispanics all buy, sell and use drugs at approximately 11 percent of each group’s population; yet Blacks (and Hispanics to some degree) are much more likely to wind up in prison or with a felony conviction for the exact same behavior Whites get a virtual pass on.

Why? Because of selective enforcement, selective prosecution, and unfair sentencing... and everyone, at every level of the justice system is in on hustle. And we know who is doing the selecting, don't we?

In the suburbs someone caught with a crack pipe is charged with a misdemeanor; in Cleveland, the same crack pipe is a felony. Why? Here's the dirty little secret: Because police officers in Cleveland get to go to court and earn four hours of overtime off of the Blacks whose lives they fuck up by giving them felonies.

Yep, it's all about the Benjamins, and everyone in the system knows it, including Cleveland's mayor, who could put a stop to this part of the scam in an instant... if he were so inclined.

While Paynter rightly blasts the prosecutors for capriciously determining who gets diversion programs and who gets a felony conviction, there is a simple way of stopping this miscarriage too: All defense attorneys have to do is quit pleading their clients out. Take every case to trial. The court system would freeze up due to the overload... it quite simply cannot handle holding trials for the 90+ percent of cases that are currently plea bargained. The system would be forced to change and become fairer.

Why don't the members of the defense bar pursue such a strategy? Ask them. In all likelihood they too are afraid of the police. Ditto for the judges who are too concerned with reelection to stand up for what is right. Their really is enough shame to go around down at the "Just Us" Center.

As long as the unfairness is happening mainly to the "other" guy, no one gives a damn, and that's a goddamn shame. Bob Paynter might as well have saved his ink and his excellent effort, because until the people who run the criminal justice system strap their nuts on and stand up for what is right and fair... nothing is going to change.

How do these cowards -- who are behaving in a manner that is truly un-American -- look at themselves in the mirror?

From Cool Cleveland contributor Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com

Mansfield Frazier's hardback book, From Behind the Wall, published by Paragon House, is available again. Visit http://www.frombehindthewall.com for more information.
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