Category: Cries for justice

Unequal Justice Under the Law

A group of faith leaders from across the country invited by Sojourners, an evangelical organization, sat spellbound this week at the Equal Justice Initiative as a man who sat on Death Row for 30 years for a crime he did not commit told his story. The room was silent except for the sniffles that resulted from tears which could not be contained.
Anthony Ray Hinton was 29 years old when, in 1985 his life changed forever. His mother had asked him to cut the lawn at their home; the two lived together in a residence near Birmingham, Alabama, and Hinton begrudgingly acquiesced to his mother’s request. As he mowed the lawn, he noticed two white men drive up to his house, park their car, and get out. It was strange; white people didn’t often just show up in the black part of town.
“They came up to me,” Hinton said to the group of faith leaders, “and asked me if I was Anthony Ray Hinton. I said, “yes, sir,” and they said I was under arrest.” Hinton recalled being surprised. He had done nothing wrong; he knew that, so although he was caught off guard at being arrested, he was fairly sure that the confusion would be cleared up shortly and he could get back to his life. He had no idea, however, of how life had just thrown him a curve ball that would shatter life as he had known it.
They took Hinton to the unmarked car in which they had driven and put him inside, handcuffed. Hinton continued to ask what he had done, and the police officer ignored him for several minutes. When he finally answered, he said that Hinton was being charged with first degree capital murder. Two people at a fast food restaurant had been shot and killed, and another injured. Hinton objected; he had done no such thing, but the officer was unmoved.
“He said I probably hadn’t done it but that he didn’t care,” Hinton said. There were a total of five charges being thrown at Hinton. In addition to the two murders, there was a charge of attempted murder (another person had been shot but had survived) and two robbery charges. “That officer turned to me and said, “You’re going to be convicted, boy. Do you know why? Because you’re black. Because you’re poor. Because the prosecutor will be white. Because the jury will be white. And because the judge will be white.”
The officer was correct. Hinton went to trial. He was appointed an attorney by the court, and, Hinton remembers, the young white man said to him upon meeting him, “I didn’t go to law school to try pro-Bono cases.” Already things were looking bad for Hinton, who, by the way, had been at work when the shootings occurred. His mother’s gun was said by the State to have been the murder weapon; a forensics “expert” had no experience in doing ballistics, did not know how to use the machine used for ballistics testing, and could not see. The all-white jury, in the court presided over by the white judge, supported the case presented by the white prosecutor who had been accused of shoddy work and unjust practices in cases involving black people in the past…and found Hinton guilty and he was sentenced to death.
At first he was too stunned to really conceptualize what had happened to him. “I kept wondering how an innocent man could be in prison sentenced to death,” he said. It didn’t make sense. What he held onto was a faith and the hope that the truth would come out. He meditated on what he said became his favorite scripture, Mark 11:24, which says, “So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayers, believe that you have received it, and it shall be yours.”
And so he prayed. Fifteen years into his sentence, he heard of Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. Stevenson’s organization has a legacy of unearthing injustice in the justice system which puts too many people of color, and too many children, in prison for life or sentenced to die. Stevenson had heard of Hinton’s case, and when he was contacted, decided to take the case on after talking with his newest client.
It was imperative, Hinton knew, to prove that the bullets that killed the two men could not have come from his mother’s gun. He was sure that if that case could be made, no court would deny him justice. He says he told Stevenson, “I know attorneys don’t like for clients to tell them what to do, but I want you to get a ballistics expert.”
Stevenson smiled and said he had every intention of doing that.
But Hinton stopped him. “No,” he said. “You don’t understand. I want you to get three ballistics experts. I want them to be white men. I want them to be from the South. And I want them to be for the death penalty.” Stevenson paused as he considered the brilliance and the wisdom of what Hinton was asking, and knew it was the right strategy. He agreed; he got three ballistics experts, two from Texas and one from Virginia. All three concluded that the bullets that killed the two men did not come from – could not have come from – Hinton’s mother’s gun.
Stevenson and his client thought they were in the fast lane to justice …but they were wrong. For 16 years, every court to which Stevenson presented the new and compelling evidence denied Hinton a new trial. It finally came to the fork in the road that led to the United States Supreme Court. Stevenson told Hinton that if the nation’s highest court didn’t rule in their favor, it would be rough going from then on out.
The Supreme Court did, however, rule in Hinton’s favor and overturned his conviction and granted him a new trial. The Alabama court system, however, decided not to pursue the case, and after 30 years sitting on Death Row in a tiny cell with only a bed and a toilet, cooped up for 23 hours a day, Hinton was released in April of 2015.
Finally.
We the faith leaders listened in awe. In spite of his horrific experience, Hinton made jokes (he said his sense of humor, plus his faith, helped him survive.) He talked about how he still sleeps in a fetal position, though he has purchased a king-sized bed, because for 30 years, he had to sleep like that on a bed that was too short for his 6’4” frame. He shared how he still gets up at 3 a.m. because on Death Row, breakfast is at 3 a.m. every day. He talked about how his imagination, in addition to his faith, kept him alive and lucid.
He attributed his freedom, so long coming, to God. God, he said, sent Bryan Stevenson. God knew…and God came to him.
“I am a Job,” he said, referring to the Biblical character who suffered unjustly. “I know for a fact that there is a God who sits high and looks low.”
The purpose of the retreat convened by Sojourners was to immerse faith leaders in issues of injustice inherent in mass incarceration, child sentencing, and policing. Hinton’s story was the spear thrust into preconceptions and misconceptions that many faith leaders see deal with in their work in churches and other ministries.
Hinton’s story served as a reminder that “the least of these” are in front of us, under the guise of justice. As Hinton finished his story, wiping tears from his eyes, so did we, the faith leaders, as we stood on our feet to applaud – his survival, his stubborn, crazy faith …and the reminder that their work to fight injustice is every before us.

A candid observation …

Can America Be Saved?

On this day, the nation and perhaps the world is waiting to see if Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown in August of this year, will be indicted.

The media has concentrated most on its fear that if there is no indictment, that Ferguson will erupt in violence. In every interview they have done, the presiding reporter and/or anchor person has eventually, somewhat uneasily, asked the question, “What do you think will happen if Wilson is not indicted? Will people go to the streets?”

The question is maddening and insulting, for at least two reasons. First, the people have already taken to the streets. Peacefully. People have been protesting …peacefully …for over 100 days, and the media has not chosen to highlight that. Innocent people have been manhandled by police and thrown into jail for protesting …peacefully. The media does not seem to get it: the people are not looking for violence. They are looking for justice. They want Darren Wilson to at least have to go to trial for killing Mike Brown. That really is not asking much.

The second reason the question is maddening is because the issue of justice for black, brown and poor people is almost never covered by the media.  The media are largely responsible for the images and perceptions America and the world have for black people. What the media does is portray black people as animals, non-humans, who cause trouble. Not too often does the media seek to get into the hearts and souls of the people, the parents, the friends, who are left behind after one of their loved ones has been killed by a law enforcement officer. No. The attention is given to the few people in mass demonstrations who loot and throw things at police.

The media could do much in letting America and the world know that this thing with Michael Brown …and Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis …is not a new thing. The media could let people know that police have been killing black people for literally years and have been allowed to get away with it. The cases are there, the stories, of black people, most often black men but black women as well, being pulled over for a “routine traffic stop” and somehow ending up dead. These are not criminals, many to most of them. They are guilty of one thing: being black in a country which does not regard black people as humans. These cases happen, the people are gunned down, and the offending police officers are allowed to get back on the streets after an “internal investigation” which almost never finds them guilty of wrongdoing.

The media doesn’t cover the disparate ways police relate to and with black people. Police don’t come into black neighborhoods to see what good they can do. No, police come into our neighborhoods, by and large, and harass young black men. They do it because they know they can …and can get away with it.

Police are no different from the masses; many to most of them are white, and have never known a black person. All they have known is what the media and our schools have taught them: black people were slaves. Black people do bad things. If a black person gets shot by police, that black person deserved it, plain and simple.

Those types of pronouncements lets America and its officers off the hook. America is filled with white people, primarily from the South but certainly not confined to that area, who are angry. Many to most white people think that black people do not belong here; that America was created to be a “white man’s country,” and that black people are out-of-place. They conveniently forget that white people, in search for big bucks, brought black people over, who really did build this country. They forget that had it not been for black people, America would never have become the economic powerhouse it has been for a long time.

I listened to a white attorney say that God meant for America to be for black people, and he said that God sanctions and approves of violence against black people. (see “The Last White Knight”)   For whites in this country, blacks are, simply, a problem.  Blacks are blamed for their poverty. Blacks are considered to be lazy and therefore, unemployed and unemployable. Whites conveniently forget that too often, now and in our history, white employers have refused to hire black people, some even putting signs up that say “Whites need only to apply.” (see, The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson).  Whites conveniently forget that black men have stood out in lines waiting to be hired when jobs were scarce and that they were always the last hired, if at all. Whites do not know the extremes black people have had to go through in order to survive and make it in America.

Because white people do not see black people as human but, rather, as subhuman (per our description in the U.S. Constitution), they have not really been able to care, to feel, to understand what it is black people are wanting. Black people do not want hand-outs. Black people want what white people have without thinking about it: black people want justice.

I don’t imagine that many white people understand that the parents of Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis and so many others …are aching….not just because their sons have been murdered by people who are supposed to protect us …but because they have had to fight to even get authorities to see that it is important that they get justice.  Yes, there is black-on-black violence, which is horrible, but that is a different kind of situation than the one I am referring to. Black-on-black crime happens, many times, because poverty and joblessness breeds that kind of behavior; crime is high in any ethnic group or neighborhood where the poverty is rampant and the opportunities lacking. Those parents are grieving, too…but in many cases, they see the assailants of their children put into jail. Not so when police kill our children.  Black people cry because the governments – state and local – not only get away with killing black people, but many of them in government and law enforcement agencies are participants in the violence.

Black people are not protected in this country. Black people are disposable. Black people are objects, and therefore, black people can be killed and nobody will have to answer for it.

This way of looking at black people is an illness. It is America’s illness, and it is cancerous. It is killing us as a nation. No nation can call itself “great” or “exceptional” that treats its own citizens this way. America is rotted in its center, but will not address or do the work to scrape the rot out.  America’s political system is based largely upon feeding racist language to a base of white people who are afraid of black people, who think black people are America’s problem, and who want black people out of here.

Can America heal? Can the pus that is oozing from America’s sores and infecting more and more of this nation stop, a sign that the illness has been treated and cured?

I don’t think so, not unless and until it decides to treat the rot. And I just don’t see that happening, not any time soon.

A candid observation…