I was glad I walked into Brevard County Courthouse (Moore Justice Center) this morning as a prospective juror, rather than a defendant because although the complex is named after black people, I ascertained that it's tough for black people to get fair treatment there based on staff and juror demographics.
All of the deputies, clerks and probably 95% of the prospective jurors were white. The optics made me feel like this was hardly a place where the scales of justice are fairly balanced for me or any other African American.
About 100 other potential jurors reported for duty at 8 a.m. But only a handfull--probably five or six--were black, including me. The vast majority of the black people I saw were getting on elevators going up to where the courtrooms are. My assumption is that they or one of their family members were standing trial.
I also saw two robed judges in the building, one came in to address us about our civic responsibilities and the other casually strolled through the jury room for some reason. Both judges were white.
I get the feeling the only place in America where you get to see black judges is on TV acting a fool.
Now, just because almost all of the folks in decision-making roles there were white, doesn't necessarily mean black or brown defendants were absolutely screwed, but the results of this 2012 study says the presence of black jurors on cases involving black defendants makes a big difference (https://today.duke.edu/...):
Juries formed from all-white jury pools in Florida convicted black defendants 16 percent more often than white defendants, a gap that was nearly eliminated when at least one member of the jury pool was black, according to a Duke University-led study.
"I think this is the first strong and convincing evidence that the racial composition of the jury pool actually has a major effect on trial outcomes," said senior author Patrick Bayer, chairman of Duke's Economics Department.
"Our Sixth Amendment right to a trial by a fair and impartial jury of our peers is a bedrock of the criminal justice system in the U.S., and yet, despite the importance of that right, there's been very little systematic analysis of how the composition of juries actually affects trial outcomes, how the rules that we have in place for selecting juries impact those outcomes," Bayer said.
Among the key findings:
-- In cases with no blacks in the jury pool, blacks were convicted 81 percent of the time, and whites were convicted 66 percent of the time. The estimated difference in conviction rates rises to 16 percent when the authors controlled for the age and gender of the jury and the year and county in which the trial took place.
-- When the jury pool included at least one black person, the conviction rates were nearly identical: 71 percent for black defendants, 73 percent for whites.
-- About 40 percent of the jury pools they examined had no black members and most of the others had one or two black members.
Honestly, I didn't want to be there. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized my presence was very necessary to at least try to help balance the scales of justice...it was indeed my civic duty and responsibility.
Anyway, every now and then the clerks would come in call some names for people in the pool who'd been selected to serve on a jury. Unfortunately, my name was never called and I was released at about 2 p.m. They told us these were random selections, and though I'm cynical by nature, I don't believe I wasn't selected because I'm black. A couple of the other blacks there were chosen.
I left very disappointed because in the back of my mind I worried that a black or brown defendant might possibly need me to help ensure more fairness for him or her. Oh well. I hope I wasn't needed for that, but something tells me I was. My fear is that because I wasn't on a jury some poor guy or lady didn't get the balanced jury we all deserve and wasn't able to walk out of that courthouse like I did.
I know some white people who read this will roll their eyes, but if they could just imagine how they'd feel as a defendant walking into a courtroom where the judge, lawyers, jurors, bailiffs and clerks were all black....