Two recent high-profile verdicts that went against white defendants were "extraordinary cases" that don't represent the day-to-day reality that the judicial system perpetuates white supremacy, a report at Truthout laid out Friday.
In both the conviction of three men for murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and the civil suit holding white supremacists liable for the deadly 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in 2017, jury-selection processes were skewed to whites.
But the fact that they ruled against white defendants were not representative, the report observed.
"Racial discrimination in high-profile cases like the Arbery murder trial and the Unite the Right civil suit reflect the day-to-day reality of the United States criminal legal system," wrote Truthout's Laura Jedeed. "While the juries in both trials ruled against the white defendants, this kind of outcome is far from a given."
Truthout quoted Stephen Bright, a lawyer and professor at Yale University.
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"These are extraordinary cases. What we really ought to worry about is the day to day," Bright says. "The criminal justice system is the part of society least affected by the civil rights movement. We still have all-white juries today, in 2021, this many years after the Civil War."
Regarding the Arbery case, Bright noted, "The jury should represent the community. And a community that's 27 percent African American should have more than one Black person on the jury."
The white supremacy case followed the same pattern, the report said:
"About 550 miles north, in Charlottesville, Virginia, a Black juror in the trial against white supremacists who organized the deadly, 2017 "Unite the Right" rally declared himself unconcerned with "racism against white/Caucasian people." The defense dismissed the juror but didn't do the same for white jurors who answered similarly. As in the Arbery trial, the prosecution challenged the dismissal. And, as in the Arbery trial, the judge refused to take action.
"Fury erupted at these judges almost immediately. Yet many activists and legal experts say the problem does not principally lie with the judges but with the law itself.
"None of the egregious things that have happened in any of these trials are outside of the bounds of American law," says Cat Brooks, co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP). Scott Roberts, senior director of criminal justice campaigns for Color of Change, agrees. He points to the case of Judge Olu Stevens in 2016, who threw out an all-white jury on racial grounds. "He recognized that discrimination was happening, … and he was suspended for 90 days."
You can read the full report here.
