This feels like an appropriate time to point out how incredibly impossible it is to prove racial bias in the justice system

Is this my first proper thread? 1/12

Warren McClesky was a black man who killed a white police officer and faced the death sentence. His defense used a study by Professor David Baldus, which showed the Georgia prosecutors "sought the death penalty in 70% of cases involving black defendants and white victims"
2/12

By comparison, prosecutors only sought the death penalty in "19% of cases involving white defendants and black victims." Even accounting for about 3 dozen non-racial variables, Baldus concluded that black defendants were 4.3 times more likely to receive the death sentence
3/12

"The statistical evidence... was the strongest ever presented to a court regarding race and criminal sentencing."
This was put in front of the Supreme Court in the case McClesky vs. Kemp (1987)
4/12

The court's position (with a 1 vote margin) was that the pattern of discrimination does not count as a violation of the 14th amendment. What they needed was proof of intention, which is not described by pointing out a pattern
5/12

Let that one sink in. In order to prove racial bias in a court, the defense needs to show that the prosecution or other involved parties had explicit intentions to be racist. Which, of course, everybody admits to all of the time /s
6/12

As an example of the ramifications of this decision, let's take a look at the case of Christopher Lee Armstrong, a black man who was arrested with four of his friends in a motel room for "federal drug charges - conspiracy to distribute more than fifty grams of crack cocaine"
7/12

Armstrong's public defenders were disturbed by the fact that he, along with every other crack case they represented, was not white. They made a request for "the prosecutors' files to support their claim of selective prosecution under the fourteenth amendment"
8/12

The request was approved by the district court, but the prosecutors refused the files and appealed to the Supreme Court. "In May 1996, the Supreme Court reversed."
9/12

"With no trace of irony, the Court demanded that Armstrong produce in advance the very thing he sought in discovery"
10/12

Basically, read "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander, an excellent book from which I summarized.
For some reason, I just felt like picking it back up today. Funny that
11/12

In essence, the courts cannot recognize systemic issues. They, like many milquetoast "colorblind" whites, will only see racism on a case-by-case basis and ignore greater problems
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