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Reconsidering Batson: Supreme Court to review death sentence handed down by all-white jury
By Matt Johnson Associate Editor, Vol. 21 The right to a trial by a jury of one’s peers is a right afforded to all criminal defendants facing a sentence of six months or more. Yet in the aftermath of an unpopular decision, the composition of a jury…Cross-Racial Identifications: Solutions to the “They All Look Alike” Effect
On a late summer evening in August of 1997, Nathan Brown was in his apartment rocking his young daughter to sleep when the police knocked on his door. The police sought Brown, one of a few Black men in his apartment complex, after a young White woman said she had been assaulted by a shirtless Black man wearing black shorts with strong body odor walking through the complex’s courtyard. Minutes later the police took Brown outside and put him in the patrol car for a one-on-one “showup.” They brought him out by himself to see the victim wearing black shorts without a shirt, and she quickly identified him as her attacker, even though he lacked a strong body odor. The victim explained later that she believed he had showered right after the attack, meaning he was her attacker. The victim again identified Brown as her attacker at trial. Though Brown took the stand in his own defense and testified that he was home at the time of the attack caring for his “fussy infant daughter”—an alibi corroborated by four of his family members—he was convicted of attempted aggravated rape and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison on the basis of the victim’s identification alone. In June 2014, Brown was exonerated of the crime when DNA evidence revealed that he could not have been the attacker. The DNA evidence was an exact match to a seventeen-year-old Black male who had been living within blocks of the apartment complex where the victim had been attacked. Nevertheless, Brown spent nearly seventeen years in prison for a crime that he did not commit.Strip Searching in the Age of Colorblind Racism: The Disparate Impact of Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of the County of Burlington
In 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of the County of Burlington. The Court held that full strip searches, including cavity searches, are permissible regardless of the existence of basic reasonable suspicion that the arrestee is in possession of contraband. Further, the Court held that law enforcement may conduct full strip searches after arresting an individual for a minor offense and irrespective of the circumstances surrounding the arrest. These holdings upended typical search jurisprudence. Florence sanctions the overreach of state power and extends to law enforcement and corrections officers the unfettered discretion to conduct graphically invasive, suspicion-less strip searches. The Court’s dereliction of duty is enough to concern all citizens. However, the impact of this phenomenal lapse will not be felt equally in the age of what Bonilla-Silva has termed colorblind racism. In 2013, in the case of Floyd v. City of New York, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin found that between January 2004 and June 2012, the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) made 4.4 million stops. She further found that more than eighty percent of these 4.4 million stops were of Blacks or Hispanics. Specifically, Judge Scheindlin found that in “52% of the 4.4 million stops, the person stopped was black, in 31% the person [stopped] was Hispanic, and in 10% the person stopped was white.” This rate of stops and frisks is grossly disproportionate to Black and Hispanic population representation in New York City and the United States in general. Further, as Judge Scheindlin astutely points out, “The NYPD’s policy of targeting ‘the right people’ for stops . . . is not directed toward the identification of a specific perpetrator, rather, it is a policy of targeting expressly identified racial groups for stops in general.” These findings make clear that Florence and colorblind racism enable law enforcement to wage war against the civil rights of minority citizens. This Article argues that the Court’s phenomenal lapse in Florence and its general abdication of law enforcement oversight inevitably subjects minorities, particularly Blacks and Latinos, to the blanket authority of law enforcement to harass and humiliate based on perfunctory arrests predicated on the slightest of infractions. Other legal analyses of Florence have largely ignored, and hence minimized, the salience of race when thinking about strip searches. In light of the significant consequential impacts of this decision on minority populations, this oversight is itself unreasonable. This paper will analyze the rationale and policy implications, particularly for people of color, in light of Florence. Finally, I will also propose policy recommendations to temper the projected negative impacts of the decision.Alabama police paralyze Indian grandfather out for a walk
By Luis E. Gomez, Associate Editor, Vol. 20 Sureshbhai Patel was in the U.S. from India for only a week before Alabama police slammed him to the ground and left him temporarily paralyzed. According to civil rights attorney Henry F. Sherrod, Patel, who is 57-years-old, was out for a…Racialized Policing in Ferguson, MO
The law operates differently for people depending on their skin color. What we are witnessing in Ferguson is an especially horrifying reminder of this insidious truth. Here’s some essential reading on this latest crisis: “What I Saw in Ferguson” – Jelani Cobb “In Ferguson, the Blurred Line Between Law Enforcement…
In the News: Warrantless Use of GPS
Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s warrantless placement of a GPS device on a vehicle was constitutional because probable cause existed to believe the car was being used for criminal purposes. A three judge panel for…Separate and Unequal: Federal Tough-on-Guns Program Targets Minority Communities for Selective Enforcement
This Article examines the Project Safe Neighborhoods program and considers whether its disproportionate application in urban, majority- African American cities (large and small) violates the guarantee of equal protection under the law. This Article will start with a description of the program and how it operates-the limited application to street-level criminal activity in predominately African American communities. Based on preliminary data showing that Project Safe Neighborhoods disproportionately impacts African Americans, the Article turns to an analysis of the applicable law. Most courts have analyzed Project Safe Neighborhoods' race-based challenges under selective prosecution case law, which requires a showing by the defendant that the program had a discriminatory impact and was effectuated with the intent to discriminate. But this case law is not definitive. Project Safe Neighborhoods is a program that operates to treat African Americans separately and unequally. The program targets African American neighborhoods and thus targets African Americans. Under well-established law, where a program effectively classifies citizens by race, it is presumptively invalid and can be upheld only upon an extraordinary justification.
