“When a juror is unable to relate to a person accused of a crime, the defendant is more likely to face stiffer penalties, up to and including life in prison,” said Charlotte, N.C.-based Attorney Darlene Harris, who after trying a recent murder trial, spoke to a White male juror who shared that a lot of the jurors could not understand the African American defendant.
Long before the 2015 Sandra Bland traffic stop in Houston, Texas, African Americans have been battling with the reoccurring fear of driving while Black.
The Chicago Police Department will allow independent evaluations of its stop-and-frisk procedures that critics say target blacks under an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union announced on August 7, as police nationwide face scrutiny about how they treat minorities. The agreement that calls for increased public disclosure and more officer training follows a scathing March 2015 report from the ACLU of Illinois that found Chicago officers disproportionately targeted blacks and other racial minorities in hundreds of thousands of stop, question and frisk encounters. Under the agreement, former U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys will provide public reports twice a year