Ugly Truth: Most U.S. Kids Sentenced to Die In Prison Are Black

[Brewman_Jax]

http://www.alternet.org/rights/143776/ugly_truth%3A_most_u.s._kids_sentenced_to_die_in_prison_are_black

From the article: On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court heard two cases that could have major implications for the way juvenile offenders are treated in our criminal justice system. Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida both involve men who are serving life without the possibility of parole for crimes they were convicted of as teenagers -- crimes in which no one was killed.

Joe Sullivan was only 13 years old when he was accused of sexually assaulting a 72-year-old woman in her Pensacola, Fla., home, hours after he and a group of older teenagers robbed her house. Sullivan, who reportedly suffers from mental disabilities, insisted that, while he participated in the robbery, he did not commit the rape. But his co-defendants, 15-year-old Michael Gulley and 17-year-old Nathan McCants, 17 pinned the crime on him. Both were tried as juveniles; Sullivan was tried as an adult.

Sullivan is African American, a fact that was stressed repeatedly at trial. The victim, Lena Bruner, testified that her assailant was "a colored boy" with "kinky hair" -- "he was quite black, and he was small," she said. Bruner admitted that she "did not see him full in the face," but she remembered him saying, "If you can't identify me, I may not have to kill you."

According to the New York Times, "at his trial, Mr. Sullivan was made to say those words several times." ("'It's been six months,' the woman said on the witness stand. 'It's hard, but it does sound similar.' ")

Sullivan had shabby representation -- his lawyer didn't bother making an opening statement and later lost his license to practice in Florida -- and his one-day trial should have cast serious doubts about his guilt. "The only physical evidence was a fingerprint lifted from a plaque in the bedroom, which could have been made during the burglary," wrote Amy Bach in Slate last week. "The clothing and other evidence have been destroyed and couldn't be tested for DNA." Nevertheless, he was found guilty, and at 14, Sullivan became the youngest person in the country to be sentenced to life without parole.

_________

The glaring result of the racial caste system and the unfairness of the injustice system that targets people of color.

[Number23]

1. Good Lord

"The vast majority -- 84 percent, in Florida -- are African American. On a national level, according to Human Rights Watch, African American youths are serving life without parole at a rate of about 10 times that of white youths."

Makes you want to scream. And what makes this so egregious is that this is only ONE COMPONENT of the criminal injustice system in action.

Wasn't this Sullivan's first crime? Why was the fact that he was documented as being mentally disabled not taken into account?? Why are black children (and women and men for that matter) so utterly unworthy of justice and compassion in this country? Participating in a burglary was shameful and worthy of punishment but even if the charges of rape were true, why does a mentally disabled 13-year old deserve life without parole for a non-homicide crime?

And this is an extremely interesting bit from the article:

1989 was also the year that a young, blond investment banker from Manhattan brutally assaulted in New York's Central Park, a horrible crime that the cops, the press and even people who lived nowhere near New York City declared solved within days. The rapists, it was decided, were five young black and Latino teenagers from Harlem. All of then would turn out to be innocent (a fact that came out only after each lost years of their lives in prison.)

Why is the highlighted part the only part of that story that I HADN'T heard????

Here's a good site for info on racial disparities in prison sentencing - http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=122

This kind of stuff literally makes me want to scream.

[noiretextatique]

4. it almost seems like it's planned

:sarcasm:

[Fire1]

6. I was lookin for that "sarcasm!" n/t

[Brewman_Jax]

8. It is no accident

The incredible numbers of black youth caught in the injustice system cannot be attributed to mere coincedence. Check out this article on http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=38421133be17fbeae318a0c8a2d54c67">Black Juveniles Face Indifferent Justice System

[noiretextatique]

9. depressing article, but thanks

back in 1978 when i was a junior in college, i took a law and psychology class. virtually all the information learned from psychological studies was ignored by the criminal justice system. from the unreliability of eye witness testimony, to the tendency of white jurors the believe black defendants were guilty.
perhaps i am feeling more discouraged today because i've been reading DU. there is a thread in DU where several folks are saying they'd support a health bill with the stupak amendment, basically because they need health insurance. i have health insurance so i can understand the need...but pro-choice democrats are saying they would support a bill with an anti-choice amendment. hopefully that amendment will be stripped, but i can't believe (and i can) how many people (especially women), are willing to sell out women. same thing happened with affirmative action. i am tired.

[Number23]

11. Noire, didn't I see you make a post somewhere where you talked about

some type of townhall meeting where white people were saying that blacks had all types of benefits that they didn't have and how America is looking out for black people and not them and then five minutes later, every one of them admitted they could never be black because "black people are too discriminated against?"

Where did you see this???

[noiretextatique]

12. it was a 20/20 special on race in america, ted koppel hosted

here is an article where he talks about a sociology professor who uses the "how much would you need to be black experiment" koppel did this same experiment on a group of white people on the program.
read koppel's comments in the interview...he really gets it. i linked some jackass who takes issue with koppel, so just ignored him and read koppel's interview excerpts with charlie rose.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2005/11/25/ted-koppel-racial-inequality-america-just-infuriates-me

Koppel: Nevertheless, just -- there's a sociology professor out on Long Island, does an experiment with his class every year. He comes in and says okay, folks, just sort of bear with me. As of five minutes from now, all of you are African-American. All of you. This happened because a giant corporation that I happen to represent, huge multibillion dollar corporation, made a mistake. Be that at as it may, you are all now African-American. The corporation wants to do the right thing by you. How much is it worth for you. For the rest of your life you're going to be black. What do you want in compensation? The kids start, a million dollars, $10 million, $50 million. And then he begins to analyze with them why? What is it that makes you feel that if a white man like you suddenly tomorrow were black and it was somebody else's fault that that happened, that they would owe you money? Interestingly by looking at it that way, he is able to get past all the sort of easy defenses we put...


Rose: We instinctively know.


Koppel: We know in our heart of hearts that life would be different. That life would be more difficult for us. There would be certain benefits that we now enjoy that we might not enjoy. That just infuriates me.


Rose, quietly: Me too.

[Number23]

13. Thanks, love. And the story really does sound fascinating.

Wish I could find the actual special. Koppel really did seem to get it, didn't he??

Koppel: There's just a certain amount of crap that you are going to learn to put up with if you are going to grow up black in this country.

Yep. Really nothing else to add to that.

[Number23]

2. I don't know why I bother but I posted this in GD too

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7004638

But why in the hell would anyone want to talk about this when they can talk about some black Columbia professor who punched some lady in the face?? I mean, it's not like prison sentencing affects TENS OF THOUSANDS of people or any damned thing! :argh: :eyes: :mad:

[Brewman_Jax]

3. Or any other fluff topic

like how the board goes insane over Michael Vick or some idiot not in the military was caught wearing a chestful of unearned medals. :eyes: But topics of actual depth and/or relating to black people goes straight to the bottom. :(

[noiretextatique]

5. the jackass in that thread is a cop

clearly he is a part of the problem.

[Fire1]

7. Frankly, I really don't want to see what they have to say. n/t

[Number23]

10. It actually went pretty well. I was moderately surprised. As noire noted,

there was only one asshole in the thread.

That in itself would be a cause for celebration around here, but the fact that the one asshole is apparently an actual police officer makes me want to literally weep for every single young male of color that he comes across while on duty.