People v. State

“I’ve done this for thirty-six years, and I think it’s people like myself that give this system a legitimacy because we try to defend our people. We try to do what’s right. And if people don’t have lawyers that stand up, then guess what? The system just railroads them.”

Thus spake Massachusetts criminal defense lawyer Barry Wilson in his own defense at a hearing right before he was sentenced to 90 days in jail for criminal contempt of court.

Like Barry Wilson, I too believe that racism is alive and well in America. I also believe, like many others, that the circumstances surrounding the shooting in Florida of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman prove it. Not because I know that Zimmerman is a racist, or that his shooting of Martin was unjustified. The jury is still out on those questions. No, the circumstances surrounding this shooting prove that racism is alive and well in America because thus far the criminal justice system is extending to George Zimmerman the benefit of the doubt to which all human beings are entitled but which in my experience only the white are actually given.

There’s an article in the Indianapolis Star today comparing Florida’s self-defense law to Indiana’s. Here’s an excerpt:

Some cases are clear-cut.

In 2008, police did not take any action against an Indianapolis father who strangled a naked man who had broken into his daughter’s room wearing only a mask and latex gloves and carrying a rope, condoms and a knife.

And earlier this year, Prosecutor Terry Curry didn’t need a grand jury to decide not to charge a Kroger manager who fatally shot a man who was trying to rob the store.

But it’s easy to find other cases where prosecutors have brought charges of murder, only to have a jury decide it was self-defense. In 2010, for instance, a jury acquitted the son of a Lawrence City Council member of murder, agreeing that he was defending himself when he fired a shotgun blast to settle a dispute over money.

“Our community is very sensitive, very tuned-in and sympathetic to rights of self-defense and our juries will absolutely give any citizen, any member of our community, a full and fair hearing on this concept of self-defense. I’m here to tell ya, boy, do they,” [Indianapolis deputy prosecutor Barb] Trathen said. “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. It’s part of the law. It’s part of our constitutional protections for all of us.”

But compare what Indiana’s criminal “justice” system did to Tyrus Coleman.

Here’s another excerpt from the Indianapolis Star story:

Under Indiana’s law, “a person is not justified in using force if . . . the person entered into combat with another person or is the initial aggressor unless the person withdraws from the encounter and communicates to the other person the intent to do so.”

Florida’s law apparently doesn’t spell out a similar restriction.

Again, compare Tyrus Coleman v. State of Indiana.

I of course can’t say with certainty that racism explains this disparity in treatment. But jurors are routinely instructed in criminal cases that the mental state of the defendant can be inferred from his actions. When an innocent man is gratuitously condemned to decades in prison without rhyme or reason it’s hard not to infer the worst.

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