WEBVTT - Racial Bias 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:05.279 This episode includes discussion of sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:11.360 If you will place your left hand on the Bible 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:14.800 and raise your right hand, and please repeat after me 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.800 and I do solemnly swear. The jury then titled action 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.040 find the defendant guilty of the prime It makes no sense, 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.080 it doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must aquit. 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:28.680 We all took the same of of office. We're all 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.360 bound by that common commitment to support and defend the Constitution, 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.240 to bear true faith and allegiance to the same that 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.080 you faithfully discharge the duties of our office. Do you 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.360 solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:43.519 to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:47.520 nothing but the truth. From Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio, 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:58.800 this is Sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. The reason 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.280 why we have free publication vacation is because we want 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:08.600 to create productive citizens. We want to teach children how 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.319 to contribute to the communities. We also want to teach 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:16.000 them about how to manage conflicts. We are trying to 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:21.200 keep our society going. So the way that a system 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:26.720 provides education to its children is symbolic of what it 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:32.200 expects from its children. If you are a six year 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:38.000 old and this has happened, who is handcuffed at your 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:41.880 school for throwing a temper tantrum by a police officer 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:48.480 and booked that school, district, that community, Our society has 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:54.560 made a very clear statement about what we expect from her. 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.760 You wouldn't expect to hear that happening to a preschool 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:03.040 or because who would do that to a preschooler? Who 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.800 would do that to a child? We valued children, We 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:11.160 recognize what our time and energy invested in them will mean. 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:26.400 But that isn't nearly always the case with black children. Hi. Everyone, 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.280 Today we're going to talk about the ways prejudice and 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.800 even racism can factor into the American justice system. This, 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:36.360 of course, is a huge topic, but we've had the 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:39.600 pleasure of working with the Georgia Innocence Project to hear 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:43.240 about their cases and the ways that they see racism 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.720 and prejudice play into the legal system and society as 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:50.040 a whole. People are working every day to fight these 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:53.520 biases and to create a more perfect system. But like 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.200 all of the topics we cover on this show, we 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.560 aren't there yet. And I hope the stories and the 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.640 expert as you hear from today will help shed at 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:06.840 least some light on this particularly troublesome aspect of the 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:10.840 justice system. We spoke with an axonoree here in Georgia, 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:15.440 Calvin Johnson. Calvin shared his story with us, his story 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:20.400 of being held in prison for sixteen years for a 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:29.440 crime that he did not commit. My name is Calvin C. Johnson, Jr. 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:32.760 And I'm the sixty first person to be asserated in 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.160 the United States of America. That there is first person 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.960 to be asonerated in the state of Georgia the DNA technology. 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:46.840 I was charged with the charge of rape in Clayton 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:52.839 County and Puton County, Georgia. Back in these counties sit 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.520 side by side, and these rapes took place with a 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:01.360 close prosinity of each other. Similar try action. They were 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:06.360 positive the same guy committed bo pries. We asked Calvin 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.160 how he got involved in this case in the first place. 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:14.440 Why did police think he was a suspect. My dad said, 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:16.080 I opened up the can of worms and I put 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.279 myself in that position. What happened to me was not right. 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.920 It was wrong, but I wasn't a perfect individual, and 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.680 I had some runners with the law and I had 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:28.960 committed burglary, and that's how I got on the radar. 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:32.400 There's nobody thought but my own I made a mistake 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:36.640 as a young man and leave me. I learned from it. 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.920 On the day that they arrested me. I remember it 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.800 was a beautiful day. It was in the spring, and 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.120 I was coming home. I had been to work that day, 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:53.440 stopped by the gym, and I was living with my 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:55.880 parents at the time, so walking up the street and 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:58.560 my mom rode by and I jumped in the car 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:00.760 and she gave me a ride that went home, and 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:03.960 no sooner than I got inside the house, there was 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.320 a knock on the door. I got a little strange. 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:09.359 Even when I got on my mom's card, something felt 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:13.200 strange that they's just some didn't feel right. As soon 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:14.800 as I got in the door, it was a knock. 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:21.040 Doom doom, doom, doom, doom, doom. I got rushed by 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:24.280 police officers, throwing on the floor and cuff and it 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:26.880 took me off and threw me into a cold, dark, 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:30.520 damp self by myself. I had no idea what I've 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.400 been charged until the next morning, and then they told me. 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:38.719 They said, you're being charged with charged great, and I 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:42.880 was basically shocked and surprise because I'm like, hey, I 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.839 didn't ripe anybody. I figure. I said, well, they're gonna 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:49.960 realize that made a mistake. They're gonna let me go, 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.000 and I'm gonna go home just a matter of time. 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.760 At that stage in my life, I basically believe that justice. 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:00.640 I brought up in the middle class family and middle 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.880 class household. My father used to be uh he was 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.520 a first black state senator in Ohio, is also a lawyer. 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:12.480 My mother worked at the college. You know, I thought, hey, 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:15.320 you know that everything was gonna be just fine. But 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.320 it didn't happen like that. They put me in a 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:23.560 liveline up person picked out somebody else side and after 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:26.920 David to that effect. So I'm thinking, wow, okay, hey, 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:29.760 I'm going home now. I mean, I got all the sight. No, 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:34.480 it didn't let me go. So then they had another 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:37.320 person that came in. It was after they had several people, 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:43.160 and this last person supposedly picked me out. It seemed 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:47.279 some kind of strange in my opinion. They went ahead 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:51.000 and took me to trial in Clay County. And first 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.640 of all, we had a preliminary hearing. That's when they 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.920 asked questions. My lawyer asked questions, like, you know, how 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:03.920 was Mr Johnson identified the lady who was the victim? 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.440 She said that well, it was identified from photographs. He 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:09.480 asked with what kind of photographs were the color for 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:12.640 the black and white and she said that they were color. 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:17.600 So later on the police officer came in asked him, said, well, 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:22.400 did you show the victim of serious of photographs for 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:26.200 identification purposes? And he said yes. He said, do you 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.600 have those with you today? He can't, we see him, 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:30.720 and he pulled out a series of black and white photo. 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:35.320 I'm like wow, I'm sitting there shaking my head and saying, okay, 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:37.680 I know they're gonna let me go now, they're gonna 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.440 realize they made a mistake. But it didn't. It didn't happen. 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.600 I was wearing a full bear back then. She didn't 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:47.960 say anything, but mustache had a mustache here since I 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:56.200 was a teenager. What's going on here? This is back 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:59.480 in nineteen three. In three they want to use the 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:05.240 DNA technology. So the blood sapple came back old positively. 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:08.720 I believe that's that's the most common blood type there 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:13.000 is you might be a positive and guess what, they say, 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:18.040 you're guilty because you're all positive. But the hair samples 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:23.160 came back and they did not match me. They matched 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:28.400 somebody of African American ancestry, but they did not match 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:32.880 Calvin C. Johnson you. So I'm like, hey, I'm all 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.079 over again, Like whoa, I'm going home now that I 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.640 get all exp but they still don't let me go. 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:44.959 They indicte me, now that's coming time to go through 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:52.520 the jury selection. Maybe three blacks that they could selected 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:55.960 and give a take a little but of course all 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.280 of them were struck. So I ended up with all 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.680 white jury and the victim was white, and I'm a 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:07.520 black man. What are my odds? What are the chances? 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:10.600 And I tell people all the time if it had 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:12.920 been an all Chinese jury and it would have been 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:17.079 a Chinese, are all Mexican jury and the Mexican victory, 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:25.720 what are the odds? The odds are totally statis. Striking 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.240 jurors because of the color of their skin or any 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:34.000 protected attributes like gender or race is a huge problem 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.480 and a big example of the ways that biased and 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:40.880 prejudice can creep into the criminal justice system. Everyone is 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.520 entitled to a trial in front of a jury of 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:47.319 their peers, and it must be a fair and impartial jury. 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.800 The concept of peers means that you need to account 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:55.360 for diversity. There are now methods in place, a type 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.880 of check called the bats and challenge that can prevent 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.160 a biased right like the one Calvin had, and we'll 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.839 go more into that later in the episode. They didn't 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:08.480 listen to anything, goes emotional things. You go to the court, 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.800 get in there. I have all this evidence, told my 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:16.040 innocence alibi testimony because I was at home with my parents. 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.800 My employer comes and he shows my employee idea and 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:25.400 testify that I had a full beer. Fact at the 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.840 fact that the fact that brought out, But it didn't 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.839 make any difference because that one dramatic moment. But they say, 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:36.640 as the person that committed the crime in this courtroom today, 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.720 and they're so, can you point that person out? Of 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.920 course they turned around, that a tear coming down to 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.280 their cheek and they point that Recolt me and said 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:53.320 he's the one, and the jury found me guilty. I 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:58.920 was sitting to light life in the Georgia penitentiary there 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.040 a year later, I did go back to the the court 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.680 again for the foot County case, because remember I said 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.040 there were two cases, and in Booton County it was 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:13.520 exact similar case. I gotta understanding and brought up my 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.320 character and everything, and they brought up the fact that 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:20.280 I already was convicted and so the odds were totally 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.920 against me now, but there was so much evidence point 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:28.360 towards my innocence. This jury here, which you had to 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:33.080 make up of seven blacks and by whites, came back 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.640 with a not guilty verdict. But even though they came 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.640 back were not guilty verdict, I'm still in prison for 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:46.880 Clayton County for this case. I spoke with Molly Palmer, 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:50.720 a lawyer and board member for the Georgia Innocence Project. 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:54.000 She's familiar with Calvin's case and can speak to the 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:57.719 ways she sees biased and racism play out from a 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:02.120 legal perspective throughout the justice system, and in Calvin's case 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:08.200 in particular. My name is Molly Palmer. I am an 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:12.080 attorney in Atlanta, and I serve on the board of 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:17.080 directors for the Georgia Innocence Project. I asked Molly what 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:22.720 inspired her to start working on wrongful conviction cases. I 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:26.520 was really shocked at the fact that wrongful convictions happen 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:30.800 and the prevalence with which they happen. I was a young, 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.200 impressionable law student, and you go to law school thinking 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:39.240 you're gonna be part of what they call a justice system. 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:42.480 I ended up going into what's essentially, at the time 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:49.079 a small, cramped basement office with a bare bones staff 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:55.520 and hardly any resources, and we were tasked with identifying 0:12:55.640 --> 0:13:01.680 and communicating with potentially wrongfully impress and men and women 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.840 in this the criminal justice system here in Georgia and 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:08.760 in Alabama. At the time, we covered both states. I 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:15.000 think it was pretty harrowing to realize how many potentially 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:20.840 wrongfully imprisoned men and women are behind bars. The estimates 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:25.800 are are somewhere between three percent and five of all 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:34.720 people who are incarcerated are wrongfully imprisoned. I think the 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:42.640 system operates from a history of structural racism. But we 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:47.280 see these racial disparities in the system, but they're all 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.920 a product of this legacy of racial injustice that essentially 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:56.280 started with slavery and this idea of a racial hierarchy. 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.720 There was a belief that black people essentially were inferior 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:06.000 and they've benefited from slavery. Even after the formal abolition 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:12.560 of slavery, this thought persisted into convict leasing and this 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:19.920 idea of African Americans being presumed, they being presumed to 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.160 be criminals. And so what we see now in our 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:28.040 current legal system is that the idea of the burden 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:34.200 of proof or the presumption of innocence applies totally differently 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:39.960 based on race. We see that people of color, in 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:45.440 particular African American men, are presumed guilty. They're presumed to 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:54.640 be criminals from the time their children. We see disproportionate stops, frisks, arrests, 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:59.200 We see in sentencing that these men are sentenced too 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:03.080 far longer in prison than are their white counterparts convicted 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.800 of the same crimes. And I think the way that 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:11.200 we over incarcerate disproportionately affects communities of color as well. 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:15.760 There's a huge collateral effect to communities, and that can 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:21.480 be discounted either and when it comes down to exonerations. 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:28.880 Roughly cent of the US population is black, Roughly forty 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:34.360 of the prison population is black, and almost sixty percent 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:41.640 of all d nasarrees are black. I think that Calvin 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:46.600 Johnson's case is a great example, and what we saw 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:51.440 in his case is something that we see far too often. Essentially, 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:56.840 it's a case of eye witness misidentification, something that we 0:15:56.880 --> 0:16:01.120 see I think in about sevent of DNA honorations, but 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:09.240 of those involved cross racial identification, and Calvin's case is 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:14.720 a prime example of this. We looked at eyewitness testimony 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:19.040 and the problems with cross racial identification in the last episode, 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:22.000 and Molly is right, it is one of the most 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:30.479 common attributes in wrongful conviction cases everywhere. Calvin was considered 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.360 the suspects, the prime suspect, and I think what we 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:38.240 saw in his case was devaluation of human life. It 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.720 was a rush to judgment, and we see that with 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.240 individuals of color on a level that we don't see 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:50.440 with white people in America. There's a quickness with which 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.720 he was identified and the finger was pointed at him, 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:56.440 and he was going to go down for these primes. 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:03.000 Despite a patchwork of partial identification shans similar to Calvin's 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:08.960 case in Louisiana, thirty of their axonorees had trials of 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:13.760 less than one day, so we see an incredible swiftness 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:18.399 in convicting young men of color. The brevity of that 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:23.479 kind of procedure shows just how careless we are. And 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:25.439 I think what it shows is that a lot of 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:30.359 these men, when you really think about it, it's not 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:34.400 as simple as they're targeted because they're black. They're they're 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:39.359 targeted because we don't care who the actual perpetrator is 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:45.040 because he's black. We as a society have not moved 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:50.160 away from this idea that inherently, if you're African American, 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:55.560 you're dangerous, and so a suspect standing before a jury 0:17:55.640 --> 0:18:00.119 or a judge who's African American almost satisfies it is 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:22.720 inherent bias and allows us to render a verdict. I 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:26.080 asked Calvin about the impacts of his conviction on him 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:29.960 and on his community. It was it was hard because 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.119 it broke my family's heart. Broke my mother's heart. A 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:35.240 couple of months after that happened, she just she had 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.400 a stroke. It was too much strain on her because 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:42.360 she couldn't believe it. Part of my family, my naturally 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:47.520 file appeals and so forth. And there I am sitting 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:50.280 down to one of the hardest working camps in the 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:54.120 state of Georgia. I call it institutionalize labor. You call 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:56.080 it what you want, but it's all of this is 0:18:56.119 --> 0:19:02.240 a formal institutionalize labor. It was a dangerous place to speak. 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.879 Nobody at this camp had less than twenty years and 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.439 we should work all around schwamp waters. And this is 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:12.879 in South Georgia. You can't even eat your food. That's 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:15.119 cover your food before you can put it in your mouth. 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:21.119 I'm seeing moccasons. I'm saying rattle snakes. There was a 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.920 violent society that I was forced into. I had to 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:29.360 make an adjustment. I had to be tough, the hard 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.840 in my heart that it changed my attitude and I 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.440 wasn't probably the nicest person in the world that during 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:39.439 those years, because they had a lot of frustration inside 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:41.080 of me. I mean, there was nobody who I could 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:46.360 really talk to about my emotions. So years go by, 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.240 years go by. I remember, you know, they wanted me 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:54.639 to get into this program called this sexual offender program. 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:58.600 Being involved in the sexual offender program might be okay 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.160 for somebody who's the sexual but in order to complete 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:04.960 this program, they want you to sign and the mission 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.960 of guilt. Now, I just came to a conclusion that 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.479 Rabb died. I just rebber die in prison and then 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.480 just to walk out, I would not have a life 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:20.320 at all. My name is Ebony Howard and a senior 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:24.600 supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. I work 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:30.320 in Alabama focusing on issues related to criminal justice reform, 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:36.720 specifically juvenile justice. Our work tends to focus on the 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.960 impact of the justice systems on black and brown people 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:45.280 and other people of color. Ebony Howard is also the 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:48.399 voice you heard at the beginning of the episode. She 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:52.359 and the organization she worked for, the Southern Poverty Law Center, 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:56.840 raise awareness about prejudice and hate crimes across the country. 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.600 Ebony's work has a strong emphasis in juvenile law, so 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:02.800 I wanted to speak with her about the ways the 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:06.080 legal system is set up to interact with some children 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:10.760 more than others. The justice system as it operates is 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:16.280 a continuation of a system of slavery using black bodies 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:22.280 towards capitalism. Even after you have the Civil War, you 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.879 still have a backlash to it. And then you continue 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:30.840 on and black people go from being enslaved to sharecroppers, 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:33.879 and then you have the Civil rights movement, and so 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:38.520 they are definitely gains there. But if you see enslavement 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:41.879 is still happening in some form or the other, because 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:45.919 even once civil rights are established and black people can 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:50.320 vote and women can vote miraculously, you have a prison 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:54.800 system that is overwhelmingly filled with black people and also 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:58.680 brown people, and you see that black and brown people 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:04.080 are getting sentence at different rates. How is it possible 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:06.800 that black people and white people can engage in the 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:11.080 same conduct, but yet black people get longer sentences. It 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:15.280 is because that same value system that says that black 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:21.280 people are other black people are inferior, carries through because 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:24.560 it is woven throughout our history. It is woven into 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:30.639 the American fabric. People say, well, black people engage in 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:35.240 more crime than white people, Latin X people engage in 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:41.639 more crime. The answer is that black and Latin X 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:45.440 people are targeted far more than white people. We see 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.119 that over and over again. We see that with stop 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:52.800 and frisk, we see that with the charging practices of 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:58.159 district attorneys. The reality is that you can't say that 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:02.800 black people are more violent because the data bears out 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:06.040 that people are being charged for the same acts but 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:08.640 getting different In US, it is and the same thing 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:12.800 with our education systems. Why is it that when you 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:17.399 look at the presence of police officers, and mostly white 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:20.399 schools are integrated schools. You see that the officer just 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:22.480 kind of stays tucked in the back and you don't 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:25.560 really see him or her. But in mostly black schools, 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:30.360 the officers are there to police students themselves, not protect them, 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:35.000 but to police them. That is because when the establishment 0:23:35.119 --> 0:23:39.800 looks at black children, when the establishment looks at black adolescence, 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:45.320 they don't see children, they don't see teenagers, they see criminals. 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:53.359 And so we train throughout this education system for incarceration. 0:23:54.840 --> 0:23:57.520 I asked to have any to explain this idea called 0:23:57.720 --> 0:24:00.879 the school to prison pipeline and what it means to 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:04.320 be exposed to the justice system at a young age. 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:12.480 I have met children in high school who were arrested 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:17.240 and maced and booked for getting into a fiet school. 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:24.280 Years later, I encountered that same kid at like age 0:24:24.320 --> 0:24:31.080 seventeen in an adult jail. I see the pipeline. I 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:35.080 see how it moves, and I see how the way 0:24:35.119 --> 0:24:38.880 that this system is run, the way that the values 0:24:38.920 --> 0:24:45.639 that it's based on directly impact black people. I wish 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:52.199 people knew what it means for people to be involved 0:24:52.320 --> 0:24:59.000 in the justice system. So the collateral consequences of being arrested, 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:03.560 even if your case doesn't go anywhere, if it's dismissed, 0:25:03.560 --> 0:25:07.960 if it's a fluke, if you are arrested and fingerprinted, 0:25:09.119 --> 0:25:13.880 the state has your identity, they have access to you. 0:25:14.800 --> 0:25:20.639 Every time a criminal act occurs and they're looking for 0:25:20.720 --> 0:25:24.359 whoever did it, you are in the pool of people 0:25:24.359 --> 0:25:29.719 that they will go to first. Apparently we have decided 0:25:29.920 --> 0:25:32.240 that the way we want our justice system to work 0:25:32.840 --> 0:25:37.439 is that we don't just lock people up. We have 0:25:37.560 --> 0:25:42.479 to punish them. So the punishment isn't just being locked up. 0:25:42.520 --> 0:25:46.280 The punishment is whatever comes with being locked up. So 0:25:46.320 --> 0:25:50.200 you'll hear people say often listen, they get what they get. 0:25:50.920 --> 0:25:54.040 That is the consequences of breaking the law. You see, 0:25:54.080 --> 0:25:56.920 let me be clear about what the actual consequences are 0:25:58.400 --> 0:26:00.960 in an out of them a prison. Right now, Somebody 0:26:01.080 --> 0:26:09.679 is being raped. Somebody is sick because they have diabetes 0:26:09.800 --> 0:26:12.000 or some kind of chronic illness, and they are not 0:26:12.080 --> 0:26:16.560 getting the care that they need. They are dying. There 0:26:16.800 --> 0:26:23.679 is a seventeen year old in a jail seeing foul, 0:26:24.680 --> 0:26:30.480 horrible things that will forever change his or hers brain. 0:26:32.480 --> 0:26:36.159 When you talk about they get what they deserve. The 0:26:36.240 --> 0:26:39.800 punishment is having your liberty taken away from you, the 0:26:39.960 --> 0:26:47.680 unseen punishment that people don't allow themselves to imagine. It's 0:26:47.720 --> 0:26:52.240 just absolute torture. If people were to allow themselves to 0:26:52.400 --> 0:26:54.960 imagine it, like to play it out in their head 0:26:55.040 --> 0:26:58.600 like a movie, they wouldn't be able to live with it. 0:27:00.440 --> 0:27:03.960 And I feel like that if more people did, they 0:27:03.960 --> 0:27:08.919 would understand how something drastically has to change with the 0:27:08.960 --> 0:27:16.680 way that we run this justice system. In Alabama. There 0:27:16.720 --> 0:27:19.840 are a couple of ways that kids can be tried 0:27:19.920 --> 0:27:24.639 as adults. One of them is called transfer. It is 0:27:24.720 --> 0:27:28.840 when a child under the age of seventeen can be 0:27:28.920 --> 0:27:31.840 charged with anything, and if the prosecutor makes a motion, 0:27:32.840 --> 0:27:35.760 then the juvenile court judge can consider that motion and 0:27:35.800 --> 0:27:41.160 then transfer that child to the adult court. In making 0:27:41.200 --> 0:27:44.399 the decision about whether or not a child should be 0:27:44.440 --> 0:27:49.680 transferred to the adult court, the judge has to consider 0:27:49.720 --> 0:27:53.600 a set of factors, but one thing that's listed there 0:27:54.040 --> 0:27:59.880 is the child's demeanor. So when you talk about something 0:28:00.040 --> 0:28:05.560 like demeanor, you've opened the door for all kinds biases 0:28:05.600 --> 0:28:09.800 to live out their lives. So he's there because he's 0:28:09.800 --> 0:28:13.520 accused of doing something wrong. Perhaps he doesn't want to 0:28:13.560 --> 0:28:18.080 make eye contact because he's scared, and the way that 0:28:18.240 --> 0:28:22.840 his fear manifests itself is to look down, and the 0:28:22.880 --> 0:28:26.879 way that his fear manifests itself is not to speak up. 0:28:27.760 --> 0:28:30.480 And he's wearing the clothes that he's wearing because that's 0:28:30.480 --> 0:28:35.720 what everybody in his neighborhood wears. He comes from a 0:28:35.880 --> 0:28:40.600 cultural context that the judges and policymakers who are in 0:28:40.720 --> 0:28:45.600 positions of power don't understand and fear, and so he's 0:28:45.640 --> 0:28:48.560 in this situation where you're expecting a fourteen year old 0:28:48.800 --> 0:28:52.640 to translate for you who he is when you're the 0:28:52.680 --> 0:28:55.280 adult in the room, like you are the one charged 0:28:55.640 --> 0:28:58.080 with ensuring that you don't do harm to this person, 0:28:59.360 --> 0:29:03.440 little pete, who are supposed to be thinking about how 0:29:03.480 --> 0:29:06.400 to best serve not just kids, but people who are 0:29:06.400 --> 0:29:10.280 involved in the justice system, people who are involved in 0:29:10.440 --> 0:29:15.120 social services systems. Those people who are running those systems 0:29:16.120 --> 0:29:22.880 cannot get out of the ingrained racist biases to see 0:29:22.920 --> 0:29:27.880 people for people. I wanted to hear more about the 0:29:27.920 --> 0:29:31.280 effects of the justice system on youth and what happens 0:29:31.280 --> 0:29:33.960