(Institute/University)
Plausible bigotry in the criminal justice system
Over two decades ago, a bystander recorded Los Angeles police officers brutally beating an African American man, Rodney King. Members of the African American community had long trumpeted police abuse; with the videotape, these hopefully had enough evidence to crystallize their accusations against the “white-controlled” police force. But at the trial, the jury absolved the four of using inordinate force; the city was engulfed in a riot. Though two of the officers were eventually convicted in Federal court, the case according to African American community leaders shows the extreme difficulty for members of racial minorities to obtain justice from a system that is imbued with racism (Constitutional Rights Foundation-USA, 2016).
In cases where “whites” and African Americans come into conflict, the “white” victim can justify their actions by stating that the race of the actual victim in cases of, for example robbery, is a relevant factor in the development of the belief of the supposed “white” victim of a possible attack from the actual victim who was a member of a marginalized sector. The claim can be based on three assumptions. One, the factoring in of the person’s race is relevant as others would do the same. Two, African Americans commit a larger share of crimes compared to those of other racial or ethnic groups. Lastly, if the supposed “white victim” was victimized earlier, then the response could be resultant on the fact of the earlier traumatic experience.
As the concept of plausibleness is critical in adopting self-defense as a motivating element, then it is possible that any of arguments can work in justifying the racism in the response of the person. Defenses in court trials will use racial inclinations of juries in affirming the fear of the jury and at the same time use these assumptions in working to absolve their clients. In People v Goetz, 68 N.Y.2d 96, 497 N.E.2d 41, 506 N.Y.S.2d 18, 1986 N.Y. 19388, the accused used the angle of racial beliefs in justifying the shooting of four African American adolescents (Delgado, Stefancic, 2000, pp. 180-182).
In framing the Rodney King as the “big black man,” prosecutors tend to use stereotypes to put forward the guilt of the accused; in essence, if the accused is of a certain race or nationality, then this factor must weigh as an automatic conviction. For example, if one was Nigerian, then these automatically sell heroin; if one was Jamaican, then it would not wrong to believe that these sell marijuana, and all members of the Mafia are Italians, and that “big black men” rape women. King was framed as the quintessential “Big Black Man” in the course of the trial, imbibed with “superhuman” strength.
In the testimony of the prosecution, King with his “superhuman” strength had to be brutally beaten since King was in control and that had to be wrested from him. Here, two elements are present in this argument; one, the ethical and moral implications for the defense to harp on the racial fears recognized in the case. Attorneys must not inject their personal concepts of justice and racial relations to the detriment of the defense of the client. The issue in the King case is that defense attorneys transgressed moral lines in using race-based defenses in the case. The prosecution is at the other point of the argument in that these failed in accurately presenting the person of King. The prosecution limited their argument to the case at hand that of police uses of disparate, brutal force and the application of the same in the case.
This is where the prosecution failed as the case was actually about King and the stereotype of the “big black man.” The decision not to let King testify was a fatal mistake for the prosecution. The real issue was not about the attack of the LAPD on a hapless Rodney King; it was about the attacks of an n agency controlled by the dominant social class on the “big black men (Vogelman, 1992, pp. 573-574).
The movement that arose from the King attacks nearly two decades ago found another rallying point in the killing of African American juvenile Trayvon Martin. The defenseless teenager was killed by a Caucasian volunteer neighborhood watch member who unilaterally “neutralized” the perceived threat Martin projected into the community. George Zimmerman, the suspect in the case, declared that he was defending himself from Martin. Both of the cases of King and Martin evince the disparate treatment that racial minorities get from the police and the criminal justice system. Militants, analysts as well as other parties that were formerly or currently engaged in the cases state that these instances transpired owing to the treatment and propaganda that African American men as belligerent and hostile.
Though the circumstances surrounding the two cases vastly differ-Martin was careening on the road and heavily inebriated when the police accosted him, Martin was walking home from a store when Zimmerman took him aside. Nonetheless, according to University of Florida law academe Professor Michelle Jacobs, there is an automatic assumption that if an African American is involved in a case, any case, then the minority member is guilty of the offense. Much of the anger and frustration that led to the eruption of the Los Angeles riots is slowly building up in much of the marginalized communities across the United States, particularly in communities who believe of being disparately treated by the police (Bello, Nasser, Welch, 2012).
The Martin case will be a litmus test for American society; the case will determine how much of the racial malaise has been removed from the social psyche in the United States. King, the main party in the middle of Los Angeles maelstrom two decades ago, believes that Martin’s family must be given justice for the loss in their family (Bello, Nasser, and Welch, 2012).
However, the unfair rulings in the King and Martin cases should not come as a shock to contemporary Americans; these events have strong and robust roots in American jurisprudence, social and historical events, and ingrained in American social thinking. In the most recent, the jury ruled that Zimmerman, a pseudo police operative, can legally profile an African American juvenile and pursue and kill as if the teenager was a dangerous criminal. Again, the judicial bigotry attending the two cases finds their roots deep in US civil rights history.
Cases such as that of Emmett Till, who was abducted and murdered in cold blood; Till was “lynched” for flirting with a Caucasian woman. The infamous Scottsboro Boys case- nine African American teenagers who allegedly raped a “white” woman-were all reminders of the heavily and deeply racist criminal justice system prevailing in the United States at the time; in both cases, the juries rendered racist rulings-Till’s killers were absolved and the Scottsboro jury ruled that the teenagers were guilty (Taylor, 2013).
This attitude of racial intolerance, regrettably, is still persistent in modern-day American law enforcement and social comprehension. Simply put, Americans want the police to interact with African Americans in the manner exhibited during the Rodney King beating. Here, the “big black man” seems to the plausible justification for the dominant “white social class;” there is an assumption that the police is the force that is protecting society from lawless elements; rather, in this context, the jury in the King case, with their decision, reaffirmed this position. With racism determined to stay in the American social and criminal justice psyche, the termination of the “big black men” will be accepted and practiced (Vogelman, 1992, p. 577).
References
Armour, J.D (2000) Race Ipsa Loquitur: of reasonable racists, intelligent Bayesians, and involuntary negrophobes. In Delgado, R., and Stefancic, J (Eds.) Critical Race Theory: the cutting edge pp. 180-193
Bello, M., Nasser, H, and Welch, W (2011) “The intersection of Rodney King and Trayvon Martin” Retrieved 9 February 2016 from <http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-04-26/trayvon-martin-reflects-rodney-king/54569324/1
Constitutional Rights Foundation-USA (2016) “The color of justice” Retrieved 9 February 2016 from <http://www.crf-usa.org/brown-v-board-50th-anniversary/the-color-of-justice.html
Taylor, F (2013) “Racism, the US justice system, and the Trayvon Martin verdict” Retrieved 9 February 2016 from <http://inthesetimes.com/article/15303/racism_the_us_justice_system_and_the_trayvon_martin_verdict
Vogelman, L (1992) “The ‘Big Black Man” syndrome: the Rodney King trial and the use of racial stereotypes in the courtroom” Fordham Urban Law Journal Volume 20 issue 3 pp. 571-578
