Republican-Appointed Judges - harsher sentences to black defendants, lighter sentences to women

[Jimmy Higgins]

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This is essentially propaganda. It was an armed robbery with a gun. The teen was facing a mandatory minimum of 10 years but got 5 with possibility of parole due to a plea bargain. The shoes were found in his possession. No evidence it had anything to do with race.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-st...-teen-gets-5-years-in-prison-for-shoe-robbery

The 79 year old was also a plea bargain: likely a sign the prosecutor was worried it would be difficult to prove the case in court.

Prove in a court in America you mean. A five year old girl... of whom probably the parents don't want to testify and go through that additional trauma. So the old white guy's lawyer is able to thin out a ridiculous sentence. Old black guy getting the same type of deal?

Lets look at the BLM hijacking in Oregon. Most of them got off entirely, despite clearly and undeniably breaking the law. Tell me a group of Black Panthers takeover a government institution, threaten to kill FBI agents, and they don't get convicted.

While the image is misleading, to say there isn't an inequity regarding race in America in the Justice system is naive at best.

 

[laughing dog]

View attachment 15947

This is essentially propaganda. It was an armed robbery with a gun. The teen was facing a mandatory minimum of 10 years but got 5 with possibility of parole due to a plea bargain. The shoes were found in his possession. No evidence it had anything to do with race.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-st...-teen-gets-5-years-in-prison-for-shoe-robbery

The 79 year old was also a plea bargain: likely a sign the prosecutor was worried it would be difficult to prove the case in court.

I think the study in the OP already provides good evidence of the racial impact: about 6 months extra for Republican judges, 3 months for Dem judges (which, as Ron pointed out, may be explainable in part due to weaker legal representation and not racism).

No need to introduce propaganda into a fact based discussion.

Whether or not it is "propaganda" it does point out a glaring inequity. I think most people who agree that raping a 5 year old is much more heinous a crime that robbing someone of their sneakers at gunpoint which would indicate that the sentence for the latter ought to be more draconian than the sentence for the former.

 

[ronburgundy]

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This isn't data. It is meaningless anecdotes comparing apples to rocks from Mars. Could be race inequality, income inequality, age inequality, evidence inequality, differences between the general punitiveness of the judges or juries/communities trying the cases, etc..

"This is America" is sadly an apt reference to the state of rational discourse and willingness to use emotional manipulation over evidence, even when there is actually data to support the same idea.

 

[ronburgundy]

I think the study in the OP already provides good evidence of the racial impact: about 6 months extra for Republican judges, 3 months for Dem judges (which, as Ron pointed out, may be explainable in part due to weaker legal representation and not racism).

However, keep in mind that is only the impact on the difference in sentencing once convicted. If judges are using race to determine sentences in equivalent cases (and the OP study shows that they are), then it is almost certain they are using race to determine many other things during the trials that impact whether a person gets convicted in the first place, from what evidence is allowed to sustaining objections, to jury instructions, etc.. It is psychologically implausible that the racial bias would suddenly only come into play at sentencing.

In addition, many of those judges are former prosecutors and public defenders, who almost certainly had the same biases back then, which adds countless other ways that blacks would be treated differently at every stage from whether the prosecutor brings charges and what charges they bring up through sentencing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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Something to keep in mind when you see wrist-slaps like this: Plea bargains are based not only on the severity of the crime but the chances of conviction and in sexual cases often on not wanting to put the victim through a trial. Thus a wrist slap like this almost certainly means the prosecution had a weak case. It was probably based on the testimony of the 5 year old.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think the study in the OP already provides good evidence of the racial impact: about 6 months extra for Republican judges, 3 months for Dem judges (which, as Ron pointed out, may be explainable in part due to weaker legal representation and not racism).

No need to introduce propaganda into a fact based discussion.

Yup. There's no question that how much defense you can afford matters in court. Any attempt to discern racial bias without considering that is useless.

Thus the 3 months for dems means nothing, the +3 for Republicans matters.

 

[Derec]

Whether or not it is "propaganda" it does point out a glaring inequity.

It is most definitely propaganda as it distorts facts to push a particular point of view. It certainly does not point to a glaring inequality though. All it points to is dishonesty of the creator.

I think most people who agree that raping a 5 year old is much more heinous a crime that robbing someone of their sneakers at gunpoint which would indicate that the sentence for the latter ought to be more draconian than the sentence for the former.

Armed robbery is a heinous crime that carries a long sentence. It is very different than mere theft. That the creator of the graphic felt the need to downplay an armed robbery to mere "theft" shows that he knows that his argument is full of shit.
Child rape is indeed more heinous than armed robbery, but this was no rape in the sense that word is normally used.

Gregory Davenport, an attorney for Burgess, said the charge is based on a claim by the girl's mother that she saw Burgess stick his hand down her daughter's pants in 2016.

So to sum up. To make a trumped up claim of "This is America", the creator of the graphic had to both downplay what the black kid did and overinflate what the white old man did. Very dishonest, but par for the course.

 

[laughing dog]

It is most definitely propaganda ..

You are a practicing expert on propaganda. as it distorts facts to push a particular point of view. It certainly does not point to a glaring inequality though. All it points to is dishonesty of the creator.

Child rape is indeed more heinous than armed robbery, but this was no rape in the sense that word is normally used.

Perhaps it was no rape in the sense that a rape apologist normally uses the term. A sexual assault of a minor is statutory rape under normal usage by normal human beings.

 

[Derec]

Old black guy getting the same type of deal?

We'll see when Bill Cosby gets sentenced.

Tell me a group of Black Panthers takeover a government institution, threaten to kill FBI agents, and they don't get convicted.

Hell, Black Panthers tortured and killed Alex Rackley and most of them did not get convicted (and those that did served very short sentences). Angela Davis gave weapons to a 17 year old to break her boyfriend (and the kid's brother) out of prison by taking a courtroom hostage and she wasn't convicted either. There were a lot of sympathizers of Black Panthers in those days (as there are today) and many made their way onto juries.

While the image is misleading, to say there isn't an inequity regarding race in America in the Justice system is naive at best.

It can work both ways. A white "sovereign citizen" threatening police with a gun would never get a $37 million verdict.
If six white kids beat up their black classmate because he was black, national media would not treat the racist perpetrators as victims.

 

[ronburgundy]

Thus the 3 months for dems means nothing

I wouldn't go that far. While it doesn't mean that Dem judges are racially biased, even it is partly or all due to wealth of the defendant, it would still reflect gross injustice of our legal system. The fact that the rich often off scott free and almost always with less punishment than the poor contradicts every modern sense of equality and justice, plus puts the public in danger from people able to buy their way out of legal consequences.
That means a lot. There are few explanations for the disparity that aren't damning of our legal system.

Then there are the injustices contributing to the fact that US blacks have half the income and a fraction of the wealth of whites, which on top of all the hardships that creates means they punished more for the same actions (and are more likely to be falsely convicted).

Unless one assumes that blacks are genetically inferior, then such outcome disparities always means something is or has been wrong with our society, it's just a question of what, but that what matters too.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Thus the 3 months for dems means nothing

I wouldn't go that far. While it doesn't mean that Dem judges are racially biased, even it is partly or all due to wealth of the defendant, it would still reflect gross injustice of our legal system. The fact that the rich often off scott free and almost always with less punishment than the poor contradicts every modern sense of equality and justice, plus puts the public in danger from people able to buy their way out of legal consequences.
That means a lot. There are few explanations for the disparity that aren't damning of our legal system.

I meant it doesn't say there's any racism on the part of the Dem judges--it's probably socioeconomic, not racial.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

*rescinded*