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[In 2013] about 10% of the population over 12 years of age had used illegal drugs in the previous year, and that this use was more or less evenly distributed across the largest racial groups: 8.8% for Hispanics, 9.5% for whites and 10.5% percent for African Americans.
Convictions for drug crimes are another matter entirely. Thirty-three percent of those serving prison terms for drug offenses are African Americans, two-and-a-half times their proportion in the population. [...] Overall African Americans are about five times as likely to go to prison for drug possession as whites, and judging from exonerations, innocent black people are about 12 times more likely to be convicted of drug crimes than innocent white people.
[...] Sixty percent of the drug exonerations we know about occurred in Harris County, Texas, home to Houston (133/221). The defendants in these cases pled guilty to drug possession before the supposed drugs they possessed were tested in a crime lab, and were exonerated weeks, months or years later after testing was done and no illegal drugs were found. Why did these defendants plead guilty even though they possessed no controlled substances? Some may have had powders or pills that they thought contained illegal drugs but did not. As far as we can tell, however, most pled guilty to get out of jail.
[...] Most, if not all of these innocent black defendants in Harris County pled guilty rather than go to trial because it was their best option, given that they had been arrested and charged, and were held in jail. But why were so many innocent black defendants arrested for drug possession when there is no reason to believe that African Americans are more likely than whites to use illegal drugs?
Two-thirds of the arrests in the Harris County guilty-plea exoneration cases (89/133) were based on cheap and notoriously inaccurate "presumptive" field tests for drugs, usually on substances found in searches following traffic stops. Anybody who is subjected to that process is at risk of false arrest and conviction. Across the country, African Americans drivers are about as likely to be stopped as white drivers, but after that, they are three times as likely to be searched. As a result, they bear much of the brunt of drug-law enforcement—including false drug possession convictions, which may number in the thousands if not tens of thousands a year.
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Sunday March 12 2017, @01:18PM (11 children)
This is how the system works. We cannot try even 1% of the accused. So pretty much every criminal pleads guilty to a lesser charge then what he was arrested for. They did not plead guilty because they thought the labs would show that they had drugs on them, they plead guilty because otherwise they would of had to go to court for assault and their were 20 witnesses.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday March 12 2017, @02:11PM (9 children)
Isn't this almost the definition of good lawyering?
I don't use tobacco or fight, but for the sake of argument lets say I had legal tobacco and rolling papers in my jacket pocket when I beat up an antifa. The police arrest me for weed and assault because the dumb cops think my tobacco is weed. My lawyer gets me a plea deal where they drop the assault charge if I plea to misdemeanor weed possession. I take the plea. The test results come back weeks after my plea, I get it overturned, basically I got away with everything, didn't I?
Or again I don't drive illegally or use tobacco, but for the sake of argument lets say my license plates are expired and I have legal tobacco and rolling papers in my car ash tray when I get pulled over. The cop was going to write me a ticket for expired registration but I start making jokes about pigs and pork and just being generally disrespectful, when he "discovers" my tobacco and rolling papers in the ash tray, and I tell him its weed, so instead of a "pay by mail" ticket I get arrested for weed possession. I plead guilty for weed possession, a misdemeanor, but one that costs much more than expired registration. Before I pay the court, the test results come back, that's just Virginia grown tobacco nothing illegal at all, get the conviction overturned, basically I got away with everything, didn't I?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday March 12 2017, @02:51PM (4 children)
No, you don't, because guilty pleas are exceedingly difficult to overturn. You are stuck with your plea.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Sunday March 12 2017, @04:11PM (3 children)
Agreed that the paths are difficult, but isn't it the easiest of the paths? I mean the news headline style where DNA testing proves some dude on death row didn't do it, then gets released.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:40PM (2 children)
Agreed that the paths are difficult, but isn't it the easiest of the paths?
"The easiest of paths" lol
Spoken as someone who has never ever had to deal with criminal injustice system.
Dude, you are so white its a miracle that your posts aren't white text on a white background.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @06:52PM (1 child)
Haha, troll mod.
But when VLM says the article is proof that black people have inferior IQs that even selective breeding can't fix, [soylentnews.org] that's legit.
White fragility for the fail.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 12 2017, @07:11PM
I'd mod you up if I could; you're right on the money of course, and I bet your -1 came from VLM himself.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Funny) by captain normal on Sunday March 12 2017, @04:12PM (2 children)
Moral of story: Do not take legal advice from VLM.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Sunday March 12 2017, @06:57PM (1 child)
um, if he weally, Weally thinks The Legal System works as he outlines it, um, he has terminal pollyannaism, or is simply an abject authoritarian... i think it is important to out authoritarians, those 25% are a REAL impediment to change...
for starters, get a whiff of reality with this little gem, google : December 10, 2010 Why Judicial Corruption is Invisible by John Barth, Jr. , should take you to a counterpunch op/ed which lays out why ANY 'faith' in the legal system is misplaced, ignorant, and a waste of time...
in short, that VLM thinks this is how the legal system actually works, shows how little he has intersected with it...
'officers of the court' LIE ALL THE TIME AND GET AWAY WITH IT, a mere citizen will not... you will NOT find 'justice' in the legal system, you will find careerists and opportunists, and psychopaths...
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 12 2017, @07:13PM
He *is* an authoritarian. Trust me, there is no Pollyanna in there at all; his post history shows him to be almost a textbook example of the RWA mindset (and I use the prefix "mind" in there loosely). I really hope he DOES have a brush with the law and gets to see the injustice in the system firsthand. Maybe then he'll grow the fuck up.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday March 12 2017, @08:35PM
You didn't get away better in either case since you spent some time in jail and had to fork over for a lawyer to try to overturn your guilty plea. Funny thing, even when the evidence proves you don't belong in jail, you stay in jail until you get a lawyer to push for your release. Even when they succeed, it's amazing how long the government will drag it's feet before you are actually released.
Naturally, this means if you don't have money, you sit and rot.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday March 12 2017, @08:26PM
Actually, they plead guilty because the time they might spend in jail waiting for their unfair trial is longer then the time they would spend if they copped to a lesser charge.