Tuesday, December 15, 2015

African Americans, the Poor in Court and Sentencing Reform

As one person I read consistently would say upon discovery of something quite obvious; “Quelle Surprise.”

I was told if I saw a prisoner, a parolee, or an Ex with a tattoo of the number “13-1/2″ on their arm, it meant 1 judge, 12 jurors, and 1/2 of a chance. 1/2 of a chance to win in court as the cards were stacked against those who could not afford adequate representation or were African American. For sure if you went to trial, the resulting sentencing would be harsher as you made them work rather than accept the offered plea bargain.

Part of the sentencing reform as proposed by Congress, backed by the Koch Bros, and supported by CAP as well as other progressive orgs. is meant to prevent the Koch Bros. associates and white collar business types from going to prison when they break the law. As to be expected, the Koch Bros. could care less about minorities and the people lacking economic means to fight back in court to prevent going to prison. Mind you now, those minorities and people of little means would still benefit from an early release; however, the effort by the Koch Bros., CAP, etc. does nothing to prevent them from going to prison in the first place.

I had previously warned on another site the effort to revise sentencing guidelines is flawed as it failed to address the upfront justice system as I explain here;

http://angrybearblog.com/2015/12/african-americans-in-prison-and-sentencing-reform.html

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