The criminal justice system in this country is grossly unfair to those that are poor, uneducated, and lacking the funds to actually retain their own attorney. The biggest hypocrisy of the American justice system is the fact that rather than being able to assert their Constitutional rights and actually, by law, get what they are supposed to get which in a criminal trial as the 6th Amendment states: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed…”, they get instead in over 90% of cases, the rather dubious plea bargain offer, of basically, the pressured coercion of pleading guilty to a lesser crime or having to face the unpleasant consequences for the rejection of such. Not too surprisingly, for those that do not know the law, have no money, have no lawyer, have pretty much next to nothing, and especially for all those that are presently incarcerated, pending their so-called “speedy” trial, these defendants will take a rather poor deal as opposed to fighting and trying to beat their charges in a court of law.
That then leads to what we see in present-day America, a whole bunch of people of color, that are incarcerated for all sorts of things, of which most of these people were never actually convicted by a jury of their peers. It is high time, that those that have nothing to lose, determine that they will fight the system, and instead of bending to the will of the state, determine to show that they will instead make their stand in a court of law.
Of course, it just isn’t good enough to simply have a jury trial, for the most important part of any jury trial actually isn’t the evidence, or any of the various lawyers, but the jury, itself. The jury is supposed to be made up of one’s peers, which obviously, would and should take into account, their income, their color, and their social status. This means, by definition, for those that live in communities in which a significant portion of the population is of color, that the only fair jury selection must have at least some people of color on it. The Supreme Court has already ruled that defendants are entitled by law, to equal protection, and that thereby the racial makeup of a given jury is germane to that guarantee, so a fair jury, must, by definition, have people of color on it, or the trial itself is subject to review and of being overturned.
There are times in one’s life, when an act of civil disobedience is the highest possible and the most ethical act that a person can make, so that, those people of color, that are on juries, all over this country, should take into account, the undeniable fact that jails and prisons have a disproportional amount of people of color that are incarcerated, which essentially is indicative of prime facie evidence that the justice system is corrupt against color people. Therefore, in order to rectify such, people of color, when on juries, should make it a point of principle, that they will not convict fellow people of color, as a consecrated act of civil disobedience, because when justice over a long and extended period of time spits in the face of those of color, than no justice has been served, and the people, for which this country and this Constitution is constructed upon, must assert their civil rights as citizens, until the walls of injustice fall down, and these heavy chains of servitude have been broken asunder, never to be forged again.