Mississippi, Texas, Race, & the Death Penalty

We also oppose the death penalty because it historically has been used in Mississippi and the South primarily against people of color for killing whites. Executing James' killers will not help balance the scales. But sparing them may help to spark a dialogue that one day will lead to the elimination of capital punishment.

That's from a letter Barbara Anderson Young wrote on behalf of herself, her mother, and her two brothers to Robert Shuler Smith. Young is the sister of James Craig Anderson.  Smith is the District Attorney of Hinds County, Mississippi.  Deryl Dedmon is the young man arrested on a charge of capital murder for killing Anderson. His lawyer says it was an accident.

Holbrook Mohr reports for AP.

Investigators say Dedmon and John Aaron Rice attacked Anderson before Dedmon climbed into a green Ford F-250 with two teenage girls and ran Anderson down.
Rice is charged with assault. Police say he left the scene just seconds before Dedmon was run over.

Anderson is black, Dedmon white.  The "authorities" whoever they may be, say it was a hate crime.  The FBI is said to be investigating.  Anderson's family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

And they seek punishment.

Those responsible for James' death deserve to punished for their criminal acts and we want them punished to the fullest extent of the law.  We hope that the criminal prosecutions will send a strong and clear message to those with hate in their hearts.

But not death.

We simply ask that the message be tempered with the love of our Savior.

Because, you know,

As Coretta Scott King stated in explaining her opposition to the death penalty, "An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation.  Justice is never advanced in the taking of human life."

Which is about as simply and clearly put as it gets.

Smith told the AP that he takes seriously what the family wants. That's

a very strong consideration that will weigh heavily in our decision.

They always say that.  They usually mean it when the family wants death.  Not so much when the family isn't after blood.  But maybe a little more when the killer's white and the victim black.  

I guess we'll find out about Smith.

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Meanwhile, a couple of states to the west, where an execution scheduled for tomorrow is itself an unconstitutional hate crime, Governor I-don't-lose-sleep-over-killing-the-innocent hasn't yet formally announced that he can't be bothered to think of a reason to grant Duane Buck a 30 day reprieve.  But the 5th Circuit did announce that it won't do anything for him.

Want some numbers?  Nationwide, since we started killing again in 1977, there have been 269 executions for interracial murders.  16 times a white person has been killed for murdering a black person.  253 times a black has been killed for murdering a white one.

* * * * *

There are those who say that racism is a thing of the past, that we're now a post-racial society.

Don't you believe it.

Anderson Letter

The Professor and The Man

I've been putting this off to let things settle down a bit. I think it's time.

The easiest way to deal with police is politely. If they want ID, you give it to them without complaint or delay. If they ask what you're doing, you tell them. If you're told to move on or over or up or out, you do.

Note that I said that's the "easiest" way. It's not the only legal way, though. The law is clear that under anything like ordinary circumstances you don't have to answer an officer's questions. When an officer asks you to stop and talk, you can walk away. When the officer rings your doorbell, you can slam the door in her face. Your right to do those things in the ordinary circumstance is a consequence of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and the Fourteenth Amendment through which the others became binding on the states.

The problem is that cops expect (and often demand) deference. Their attitude, the attitude of even the best cops, is that people who don't readily cooperate have something to hide and are doing what they shouldn't.

All that's the same whether you're a middle-aged white banker stopped for speeding on the highway or a college student arrested for underage drinking or a bank robber or a nineteen-year-old black kid walking down the street minding your own business getting rousted for being a nineteen-year-old black kid. And it's the same, too, when you're Suron Jacobs, an African-American man who was arrested and charged with resisting arrest because he refused to answer a cop's questions and tried to walk away when he was approached by the police while waiting for his brother to pick him up near a school in Ottawa Hills, Ohio where he was working on a renovation project. Jacobs sued Ottawa Hills over that and the settlement cost the village some $165,000. (Story buried in this article. Stories from the time aren't available for free. Full disclosure - I was one of Suron's lawyers when he sued Ottawa Hills.)

And, of course, and now we get to the meat of things, it's the same when you're a distinguished professor at Harvard. Especially if you're black. But if you happen to be Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the event gets a whole lot of publicity.

Here's the thing. Police, black or white, otherwise racist or not, are conditioned to believe that people of color commit more crimes than white folks. They are conditioned to believe that, especially, people of color in upscale neighborhoods aren't there for legitimate reasons. And they're damn sure that those people of color ought to be deferential. It's not racial profiling, exactly, it's more pernicious and less conscious than that.

We have some actual data from New York: From 2004 through 2008, police in New York City stopped and frisked something close to 2 million people. Roughly half were African-American. Just under a third were Latino. Around 10 percent were white. And nearly 90 percent were altogether innocent of any wrongdoing. (Report here; thanks to Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice for reminding me of the study.) The lesson really is clear about what police expect.

I don't pretend to know exactly what happened the other night in Cambridge. But I know this much for sure: If Professor Gates had humbled himself, if he'd behaved with the deference that Sgt Crowly wanted and expected, he'd not have been arrested. Instead, and whatever the details, he was indignant or outraged or just uncooperatively standing on his right to be treated with dignity and respect and to refuse to bow down (literally or metaphorically) before whitey.

More power to him. Would we were all so brave.

But you know, if he weren't who he is, with all the connections he has, he might well have spent a day or two in jail before being released, and might still have a court appearance or twelve ahead. And if he were that nineteen year old kid I mentioned a bit ago, he might very well have a few bruises - or worse.