Politics: Justice Lag of America
Ironically, a few news items concerning the American justice system should be demanding the attention of the American people this week, but instead we’ll be talking about all the wars we are and aren’t having, along with a $600 billion dollar tax cut for people who don’t need it.
First up (though in no particular order), is a disturbing item in the Washington Post about the application of the death penalty in the Maryland.
It seems that prosecutors in the “Free State” are far more likely to seek the death penalty when a black offender’s victim is white. Essentially, Maryland has created two classes of murder: killing a white and killing one of their own. Sadly, the piece indicates that this disparity is mirrored around the nation.
Here’s the money bit:
Elsewhere, research by the Boston Globe revealed that in an examination of 750,000 traffic stops, black and Hispanic drivers are fifty percent more likely to have their car searched for drugs. Meanwhile, whites are more likely to actually face drug charges after a search. That means that police in Massachusetts are searching cars for some reason other than a dependable statistic. They appear to be searching cars belonging to blacks and Hispanics because those drivers are, simply put, the wrong color.
The story in Massachusetts hews close to the findings of an analysis the LA Times discussed in this piece published this week. While the LAPD doesn’t appear to profile drivers in the actual pulling over of traffic violators (the number of drivers pulled over matches the proportional population breakdown of LA), that parity ends once the police officer gets a look at the driver.
Seven percent of white drivers are asked to step out of their cars. 22 percent of black drivers and 22 percent of Latinos get the same treatment. Once out of the car, still a higher proportion of black and Latino drivers are patted down or have their cars searched.
Finally, last night President Bush renominated 30 judicial candidates who didn’t get confirmed last year. Two of those were rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee last year owing to concerns over their respect for civil and women’s rights. One nominee, Charles Pickering, Sr., is a good friend of Senator Trent Lott, has a documented record of hostility towards plaintiffs in civil rights and civil liberties claims, openly opposes a woman’s right to choose, and has been cited as dangerously mixing religion and jurisprudence.
American justice is in dangerous decline. Despite the evidence of dangerous disparity, Maryland’s incoming Republican governor, Robert Ehrlich, will immediately lift the outgoing Democratic governor’s moratorium on the death penalty. In Massachusetts, further analysis revealed that police officers statewide are conveniently leaving out race information when they complete their accounts of traffic stops, essentially to stymie efforts to adequately analyze their racial profiling techniques. A follow-up piece in the LA Times includes countless Angelenos recounting their profiling history, including one black man who says that a key profiling technique is to target a black man driving a late model, large body American car, “Cutlasses, Caprices, Monte Carlos, Regals, basically anything you can put dub [20 inch] rims on” are profiled by police.
Is it 2003 or 1933?
Ironically, a few news items concerning the American justice system should be demanding the attention of the American people this week, but instead we’ll be talking about all the wars we are and aren’t having, along with a $600 billion dollar tax cut for people who don’t need it.
First up (though in no particular order), is a disturbing item in the Washington Post about the application of the death penalty in the Maryland.
It seems that prosecutors in the “Free State” are far more likely to seek the death penalty when a black offender’s victim is white. Essentially, Maryland has created two classes of murder: killing a white and killing one of their own. Sadly, the piece indicates that this disparity is mirrored around the nation.
Here’s the money bit:
"Offenders who kill white victims, especially if the offender is black, are significantly and substantially more likely to be charged with a capital crime," the report states. The probability is "twice as high as when a black slays another black."
Elsewhere, research by the Boston Globe revealed that in an examination of 750,000 traffic stops, black and Hispanic drivers are fifty percent more likely to have their car searched for drugs. Meanwhile, whites are more likely to actually face drug charges after a search. That means that police in Massachusetts are searching cars for some reason other than a dependable statistic. They appear to be searching cars belonging to blacks and Hispanics because those drivers are, simply put, the wrong color.
The story in Massachusetts hews close to the findings of an analysis the LA Times discussed in this piece published this week. While the LAPD doesn’t appear to profile drivers in the actual pulling over of traffic violators (the number of drivers pulled over matches the proportional population breakdown of LA), that parity ends once the police officer gets a look at the driver.
Seven percent of white drivers are asked to step out of their cars. 22 percent of black drivers and 22 percent of Latinos get the same treatment. Once out of the car, still a higher proportion of black and Latino drivers are patted down or have their cars searched.
Finally, last night President Bush renominated 30 judicial candidates who didn’t get confirmed last year. Two of those were rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee last year owing to concerns over their respect for civil and women’s rights. One nominee, Charles Pickering, Sr., is a good friend of Senator Trent Lott, has a documented record of hostility towards plaintiffs in civil rights and civil liberties claims, openly opposes a woman’s right to choose, and has been cited as dangerously mixing religion and jurisprudence.
American justice is in dangerous decline. Despite the evidence of dangerous disparity, Maryland’s incoming Republican governor, Robert Ehrlich, will immediately lift the outgoing Democratic governor’s moratorium on the death penalty. In Massachusetts, further analysis revealed that police officers statewide are conveniently leaving out race information when they complete their accounts of traffic stops, essentially to stymie efforts to adequately analyze their racial profiling techniques. A follow-up piece in the LA Times includes countless Angelenos recounting their profiling history, including one black man who says that a key profiling technique is to target a black man driving a late model, large body American car, “Cutlasses, Caprices, Monte Carlos, Regals, basically anything you can put dub [20 inch] rims on” are profiled by police.
Is it 2003 or 1933?
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