Pubdate: Sun, 04 Oct 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Debbie Hines
Note: The writer, a trial lawyer, is a former prosecutor.

BALTIMORE'S ASSEMBLY-LINE JUSTICE

My parents taught my brother and me to respect the police. We once 
lived on the same West Baltimore street where riots broke out after 
the death of Freddie Gray, whowas injured in police custody on April 
12. Gray was unconscious when a police van transporting him for 
booking arrived at the police station. He died one week later from 
spinal cord injuries. Gray's death sparked protests in Baltimore and 
other cities.

After getting a law degree, I returned to Baltimore and became an 
assistant state's attorney, a black female prosecutor among many 
white male prosecutors. That's when I began work on the assembly line 
that is the United States' criminal justice system, in the same 
office that later charged six officers in Gray's death.

For nearly five years as a prosecutor, I was in courtrooms almost 
every day. The prosecutor's office is like a factory. The wheels of 
justice spin with little regard for how things work.

Police officers were my witnesses in a criminal justice system that 
disproportionately targets black males. Most weekdays, the large 
Baltimore courtrooms overflow with black men. It is as though white 
people don't commit crimes. Back then, I didn't analyze the 
consequences of what police do that fosters deep distrust in the 
African American community.

In Baltimore's misdemeanor crime unit, most charges are brought for 
petty theft, shoplifting, minor assaults, minor drug offenses, 
illegal handgun possession, drunken or impaired driving, or 
disorderly conduct. The majority of all criminal cases are 
misdemeanors. While Baltimore's black population hovers around 64 
percent, an American Civil Liberties Union study found that 92 
percent of the city's marijuana possession arrests in 2010 were of 
African Americans. That 2013 study claims that blacks and whites use 
marijuana at about the same rate, yet I rarely saw white defendants. 
The pervasive feeling in the African American community is that the 
Baltimore police single out black men by following, stopping and 
arresting them.

It was my job to review police officers' sworn statements to obtain 
charges. These documents are supposed to describe facts leading to 
each arrest. Often they lacked uniqueness, reading instead as though 
they were taken verbatim from charges filed against others.

I was struck by how frequently simple arrests had no probable cause. 
Charges of loitering, disorderly conduct or failing to obey police 
were often stand-ins for "little else to go on." It was difficult to 
know whether officers misunderstood and therefore misapplied the law 
or knew the law and failed to correctly apply it. Did they 
purposefully misapply the law to arrest more black men than anyone 
else? The result was the same. Police frequently arrested black 
people without probable cause. Some cases were dismissed, but in most 
cases, the arrest records remained.

I felt powerless to change this system. As with many lawyers 
beginning a career, my goal was to obtain trial skills and advance. 
Rocking the boat is not conducive to promotion. But the experience 
helped me make a quick decision when my brother recently had a 
medical emergency while driving in Baltimore.

My brother, who is black, more than 6 feet tall and 260 pounds, was 
able to stop his vehicle and call me. But he was disoriented and 
confused, clearly not himself. While on the phone, he saw a police 
car and asked me whether he should flag the officer and ask for help.

Concerned that the police would arrest him rather than help, I said no.

If the criminal justice system is going to address racial inequities, 
it must start at the leadership level. The lower assembly-line 
prosecutors cannot make policy changes. Top prosecutors must take a 
serious look at how we prosecute crime, who gets prosecuted and why.

If we keep doing the same thing, distrust in the police and the 
system will continue. And more Freddie Grays will get arrested, go to 
jail or die at the hands of police.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom