THE LAW AGAINST THE LAW
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Column Written 6/20/98
If it took the White majority more than two hundred years to understand that
slavery was wrong, and approximately one hundred years to realize that
segregation was wrong (and many still don’t understand), how long will it take
them to perceive that American criminal justice is evil?
--Paul Butler "Brotherman:
Reflections of a Reformed Prosecutor",
The Darden Dilemma Ellis Cose, ed. (1997)
As long ago as 1880, the US Supreme Court, in Strauder v. West Virginia, ruled
that the "defendant does have the right to be tried by a jury whose members
are selected pursuant to nondiscriminatory criteria." Over a century later,
in Batson v. Kentucky (1986),the nation's highest court had to reiterate this
principle, for although a century passed by, it remains all too common for
trials to be conducted before all-white, or predominantly white, juries, in
cases where it appears as if, besides the defendant, only the judge's robes
are black. It also shows us that no matter what the Supreme Court does, the
judiciary, prosecutors, and police will do what they want to with impunity,
especially when blacks are defendants. For, if Strauder was the "law" why did
it need reiteration in Baston?
Strauder was ignore in American courtrooms for 106 years, just as Baston is
today. As any law student knows, the practice of the law is vastly different
from its theory.
Shortly after Baston was decided (in 1986) an Assistant DA in Philadelphia
gave a class to DA trainees, teaching them how to violate the spirit of Baston
by insuring that most blacks would be removed from the jury pool.
It's over a dozen years since Baston, and still cases are upheld where black
defendant had black jurors removed for bogus reasons – today. What is the
"Law"? What the Supreme Court says, or what DA's do? What the cases say, or
what trial judges allow?
The "law" is what is allowed in real cases, in real courtrooms, daily across
America, and not what is written in dry, dusty books read by hoary scholars.
Seen from this perspective, Baston is still not the law, despite what books
may say.
And if the process is not tainted enough, what of the consequences of such a
process?
Recently, the Governor of the state which boasts a spate of Baston violations
(Pennsylvania), signed Senate Bill 423 into law, and thereby enacted a statute
that forbids a death penalty appeal base on:
a) claims that blacks are more likely to be executed for the same crime than
whites.
b) that an indigent defendant is more likely to be executed than a rich one.
c) claims that a death sentence is excessive or disproportionate to the
penalty imposed in similar cases.
This is, essentially, a law against the ":law". It is a proclamation of the
supremacy of the political over the legal. It is a statute that explicitly
protects white life over black life, that exclaims the inherent worth of the
wealthy over the poor, and that allows the basest disproportion to masquerade
as "justice".
It is a statement that reflects a hellish, unequal status quo that still has
not changed no matter what the US Supreme Court says, and no matter how many
times it says it.
It is the law of what was, what is and what may be.
©MAJ
© 1998 Mumia Abu-Jamal
All Rights Reserved