1. Jason Lindsay
“… jurors are influenced not simply by the knowledge that the defendant is Black, but also by
the extent to which the defendant appears stereotypically Black.”
I found this passage very upsetting. When I think of the justice system, I think
ideologically that it is blind to race, creed and socioeconomic status. When I think about it
though, if this was true why do lawyers insist that defendants dress nice for court? According to
this article, the whiter you look, as a black person, the more likely you are not to receive the
death penalty. This can only be a structural issue. I don’t believe that juries look at a person and
say, “oh, he is black lets fry him.” I think they listen to the facts and pass judgment on those
facts. It is the racism that is socially embedded in them that makes them vote for the death
penalty the more Afrocentric a defendant looks.
I have written about my nephew before, but I would like to use him in this scenario. If he
was charged with a capital offence, I would make sure his attorney saw this article. Justin has a
black father and a white mother. I would take extra care to highlight his less Afrocentric
qualities in the hopes that he receives life without parole instead of the death penalty.
The concept that one could be deemed more death worthy than another because of their
genetics is important. Educating judges and lawyers to be aware of this phenomenon could help
as they use their discretion in so much as to what sentence they want to go for when trying a
defendant.
After reading this article I would like to see some research as to whether or not
Afrocentric qualities translate into longer sentances for other crimes. Based on this article I
would guess that they do.
This article made me think of solutions to the problem. One I came up with, would be for
defendants in death penalty cases to be present in the courtroom during the trial, but out of view
of the jurors. If the jury doesn’t know what race the defendant is, race is rendered moot, as is
socioeconomic status. The implicit racism that is in everyone would be counteracted by making
justice truly blind.