>Does anyone on this list believe that a black man would have gotten the
>same sentence?
I was just reading this from a self-professed liberal criminal defense attorney's blog:
>As the Duke lacrosse players are preparing to demonstrate yet again,
>it's very difficult to convict a rich person in the United
>States. Partly that's because rich people can hire teams of
>high-priced lawyers, jury consultants and professional mouthpieces....
>[....]
>
>Partly, too, it's because witnesses, including victims, are so easy
>to pay off....
>
>[...]
>
>
>But the biggest reason it's difficult to convict a rich person is
>because that's the way the U.S. Supreme Court wants it. The Court
>has, since the 1960s, established a whole succession of rules that
>favor the clever and well-advised. As Professor William J. Stuntz
>recently wrote in The New Republic, "We seem to have created the
>perfect system for policing the police--if the system's goals are to
>maximize protection for rich white kids from the suburbs and
>maximize police authority over poor black kids from central cities."
>
>[....]
http://www.judgingcrimes.com/journal/2006/4/23/102-class-warriors.html
>Judging Crimes is a blog about criminal law, violent crime and the
>judiciary, dedicated to making the liberal case for greater
>democratic control of the criminal justice system. It's a "view
>from the trenches" because it's written by a practitioner, not an
>academic or journalist. It examines the changing role of the
>judiciary in American society by looking at what judges actually do,
>rather than what they say. I know what they do because I deal with
>the consequences every day.