Eleventh Circuit Grants Immunity to Officer Who Shot Child Lying on the Ground | Cato @ Liberty

A recent article in The Marshall Project scratches the surface of a dialogue whose time has come. “While potential jurors take an oath to answer questions honestly during voir dire, and there are undoubtedly some with hard biases, I suspect many socially conscious citizens overstate their positions,” writes Todd Oppenheim of the Baltimore Public Defender’s Office. “Those individuals should think carefully about whether their closely-held beliefs actually result in bias before answering questions. They should take that question more seriously because judges will almost always err on the side of caution and eliminate those on the fence—or simply posturing—from jury pools, even if they might make for good jurors. Defendants lose out as a result.” ————————————————————————- A great article, but it does not go nearly far enough.  #blacklivesmatter and the like are not the only movements that can become problematic in the jury box when a juror feels compelled to answer with depth and honesty.  People who may call themselves various forms of “progressive” increasingly share a healthy skepticism of the government, of the police.  In particular, they see profound injustice in the overall treatment of men of color by our justice system from the time of arrest all the way through the the ultimate test of justice; a jury trial.  What the article fails to address is what happens when this movement runs directly into another movement, such as the #metoo movement. Increasingly, we are a nation in which progressive advocacy groups see vindication only in guilty verdicts, and decry any other outcome as a “slap in the face to all women,” or other such hyperbole.  In order to be considered “enlightened,” one is now socially compelled to say “I believe her” from the moment allegations are spoken by an accuser.  However, many so-called “progressive” individuals who promote this sentiment likely also find favor with movements raising awareness about the disparate treatment of African Americans and other minorities at the hands of police and the larger machine of the justice system as well.   Yet, in cases of sexual assault allegations, the government’s position is essentially “you should believe her.”  So what happens when a man of color is accused of sexual assault? We have countless stories in which men of color have been exonerated of crimes by DNA or other evidence, and most of those cases are criminal sexual conduct cases.  Many of these men have sat years or decades in prison for a crime they did not commit.  In every one of those cases, the jury said “I believe her.”  We know also that when the accused is black, and the alleged victim is not, there is an even greater risk of wrongful conviction.  The fact remains our justice system is still making the exact same errors today that put these men in prison decades ago.  In most criminal sexual conduct cases, there is no biological evidence at all, and we are left with the same rules of evidence, and a question of credibility, that decide a man’s fate.  Just as racism and sexism… Read more {+}