the DA didn’t make the case for the crime and i went into the deliberation room knowing that. i also knew a half-dozen white orange county folks might not see it that way. the defendant was latino, there was a gang charge in addition to robbery.
sure enough, as we went around the table to give our first impressions, the white ladies used language around “gut instinct” and “he shouldn’t be hanging out with bad people” and the like. others were undecided because there was so much unreliable testimony.
they got to me and i flatly said “i have reasonable doubts.” i stated some of my reasoning and heads started to nod. the next 3 jurors to talk after me were hispanic. they stated that they understood why this might be confusing, and then gave some personal perspectives about growing up in disadvantage neighborhoods, how not everyone is a gangster just because they live there. one white lady said “well, you know, they should really move if that’s the case.”
the discussion opened up and it went right to gangs, right to how the defendant shouldn’t be hanging out with gang members. everyone had an opinion about how the defendant looked, or talked, or that he was drinking a 40 just before the robbery, or that he was related to a gang member. they went right to that.
but that’s not what we were supposed to decide on. we were there for a robbery as the primary charge. a robbery that i very clearly felt the state had not been able to pin on this guy.
so… being the loud mouth that i sometimes am… i interrupted and said “let’s all turn to page 14 in the jury instructions and go through what would make the charge ‘guilty’, line by line, and see where we all stand.”
sure enough, when we focused on the actual charge, and the facts actually required for someone to be found guilty, most in the room agreed it wasn’t there. well, except for two white ladies.
so i, also a white lady, helped to walk them through the list. when “gut instinct” or “it’s a bad neighborhood” came up, i kindly pointed out that those are not facts of the case. when i requested that they use the facts of the case to provide reasoning for their position, they both quietly agreed there weren’t any.
and that’s how, in about an hour, we came to a unanimous decision of ‘not guilty’.
i don’t have experience with the court system. and i don’t watch court room based tv dramas. so i was really a blank slate to all this.
i was taken aback at the very clear inherent bias that some jurors displayed, and all the while realizing they didn’t think of themselves as biased. but i was also taken aback by how focusing on the process, the rules, and the facts quickly squashed that line of reasoning.
this has buoyed me a bit, in light of the actions of the aclu over the muslim ban. but it also feels so fragile. so very fragile.
Even under the best circumstances, American juries are very heavily skewed against black people and other people of color.
Very nicely done, @notentirely. As a young black man who has had some close calls with the criminal “justice” system, I want to say thank you for putting your white privilege to good use.
The perfect execution of civic duty. Thank you, op, for being an excellent citizen.
Brazil did it. Brazil elected a neo-facist, racist, homophobic asshole to govern our country and the consequences about it it’s already happening.
In less than 24h since he’s been elected it’s been hell of fucking earth in Brazil. Countless people have been reported dead all over the country, mainly LGBTQ+. Countless. People parading around cities with their fucking guns (it’s pretty much illegal in Brazil but this asshole is trying to change our law to allow guns, he’s even encouraging parents to give their kids a gun ????), shooting it into the sky in sign of victory. Did you know that one of those bullets killed a child? Yeah. One killed an old lady too. There’s been report of them invading a indigenous village and attacked them. They’ve been saying they are going to kill every single “slut”, “fag”, “dyke”, poor people, Nordestino (people that lives in Nordeste, a region in Brazil, that is mainly against this government), black and homeless people. Aka in the last 24h Brazil felt what is like to live in the fucking Purge.
There’s already people recruiting “good citizens” to erradicate Brazil of “fags and dykes, because now that their master’s been elected, there’s nothing protecting them, they’re not even people.” I kid you not. They’ve created group chats in popular apps to talk about mass shooting the LGBTQ+ community in Brazil. Yesterday there were people waiting outside a queer club to beat anyone that went outside.
Our police enforcement already started to invade college campuses and schools to destroy history books because they think our teachers are indoctrinating us in favor of communism. These history books tells about our 1964 military dictatorship (something we’re very afraid of happening again and we’re pretty sure is gonna happen with this demon in charge). They are trying to say that we choose to elect a military government back then, when in fact was a fucking coup. They’re also trying to get rid of philosophy classes and social studies because they think it only teach us to become communists as well. Basically, they’re all very ignorant and violents and they’re trying to fuck with the only fucking hope we have to our future: education.
You won’t probably hear many of the things I’m saying because I’ve been reading it on social media, and everything we (the opposition) say on social media is basically reported as “fake news” by his voters. But yeah, I can’t count how many videos I’ve saw today of women getting beaten and threatened. Of how many stories I’ve read of people walking the streets and cars pullover poiting guns at them and threaten them. Of people posting pictures of their “victory bbq” with guns spread in their tables close to their fucking meat. Of how many times I’ve cried since his pronouncement, thinking about how I’ve never felt so unsafe in my entire life. Of how I’ll have to be cautious about everything from now on, if I don’t want to become another casualty.
If you don’t believe what I’m saying, read about what foreign news are talking about us:
I do not care if you give two shits about politics or what’s happening in the world right now, just please take some time out of your day to really look at this.
OneLastReasonToBreathe 