In an order issued today, U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria said that the hand-written notes of prosecutors from a 31-year-old murder case “constitute strong evidence that, in prior decades, prosecutors from the [Alameda County District Attorney’s] office were engaged in a pattern of serious misconduct, automatically excluding Jewish and African American jurors in death penalty cases.”

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240425121138/https://oaklandside.org/2024/04/22/alameda-county-prosecutors-allegedly-excluded-black-people-and-jews-from-death-penalty-juries/

  • Flying Squid
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    146 months ago

    The apparent attempts to exclude Black and Jewish people from juries in homicide cases may have been based upon the belief that these groups would be less likely to convict someone if a death sentence was possible.

    It’s almost as if you’re not part of cisgendered, white, Christian, male, heteronormative subsection of society, you see how inherently unjust our so-called justice system is, isn’t it?

    • @Cosmonauticus
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      96 months ago

      Stop leaving out white women. They’re the least likely to be convicted and even when they are they receive the least amount of time when sentenced. They benefit just as much as white men if not more and have been active participants of the injustices of the court system for centuries. You should try asking Emmett Till about his experience with white women and the justice system.

        • @Cosmonauticus
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          26 months ago

          I was referring more to the fact that a white woman was directly responsible for his murder and used a biased court system to avoid punishment

          Racial bias in jury selection is a bigger problem, but gender bias is still a problem.

          Which is why I think it’s disingenuous to exclude white women from your point as they are more likely to be selected for jury duty than anyone else besides a white male

          • Flying Squid
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            36 months ago

            Which… still makes it a jury bias problem?

            I’m not sure why you think ‘less discrimination than other groups are discriminated against’ is acceptable when it comes to jury selection.

            • @Cosmonauticus
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              36 months ago

              I’m not only telling about jury bias. I’m talking about the justice system as a whole.

              I’m not sure why you think ‘less discrimination than other groups are discriminated against’ is acceptable when it comes to jury selection

              Because in cases with all white juries (even those with white women) they’re still more likely to convict a black defendant.

              Among the key findings:-- In cases with no blacks in the jury pool, blacks were convicted 81 percent of the time, and whites were convicted 66 percent of the time. The estimated difference in conviction rates rises to 16 percent when the authors controlled for the age and gender of the jury and the year and county in which the trial took place

              So while being discriminated themselves they contribute to the overall bigger problem of racial discrimination. You don’t get a pass when you’re an active participant in making things worse regardless of whatever discrimination you face.

              • Flying Squid
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                26 months ago

                I’m not only telling about jury bias. I’m talking about the justice system as a whole.

                Okay, but this is about jury bias, as have my posts been, so if you wanted to change the subject, you should have said so.

                Because in cases with all white juries (even those with white women) they’re still more likely to convict a black defendant.

                That still doesn’t mean that a bias against women, even if they are white, is not a problem. And no one was arguing in favor of all-white juries, so I’m not sure why you’re even bringing that up.

                • @Cosmonauticus
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                  26 months ago

                  Because your original comment placed the blame solely on straight white even though white women are a major part of jury bias towards minorities

                  • Flying Squid
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                    6 months ago

                    Which still doesn’t change the fact that there is a gender bias in jury selection. Bias in jury selection is always bad. Racial bias is bad, religious bias is bad, gender bias is bad. The whole point is to not have a jury of just white men. I’m not sure why that doesn’t include women to you just because they might be white.

                    Or are you saying white people shouldn’t be on juries at all?

      • @gAlienLifeformOP
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        56 months ago

        have been active participants of the injustices of the court system for centuries

        This much is true and it is important to talk about to keep is from repeating history’s mistakes

        They benefit just as much as white men if not more

        There are countless instances of sexual assault and domestic violence that cops and prosecutors have swept under rugs for decades that argue against that really strongly imo. Being victims of oppression doesn’t excuse participating and upholding oppressive systems, but if we’re going to tell the whole story let’s tell the whole story.