Juries are out on police and prosecutors

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 24, 1997 | by Paul Craig Roberts

Liberal groups have convinced themselves and perhaps others that black defendants are far more likely to be convicted of crimes than are whites. This "fact" is said by some to be evidence of the racist nature of the criminal justice system and the victim status of blacks.

A recent study by Robert Lerner for the Center for Equal Opportunity examined this belief in the light of the actual crime statistics collected by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice. The evidence unambiguously shows that black defendants are less likely to be convicted of crimes than are whites. For most categories of crime, juries acquit blacks at a higher rate than whites, and a higher percentage of charges against blacks are dismissed than are charges against whites.

Does this mean that liberals have it backward and that the criminal-justice system is stacked in favor of blacks? I don't think so. There is a more persuasive explanation than racial prejudice. Inner-city black juries are more suspicious of prosecutors and police and give defendants more benefit of the doubt. Middle class and white juries, worried about crime, tend to give the benefit of the doubt to prosecutors and police. It comes down to a matter of trust. Inner-city blacks understand that the defendant doesn't always get a fair shake from prosecutors and police, who are under career pressures to produce high conviction and arrest rates. Inner-city blacks are not only street-smart but also justice system-smart. In contrast, middle class jurors are naive about the criminal-justice system and assume that police and prosecutors are purer than they are.

This means that black juries are doing a better job than white juries. The purpose of juries is to prevent innocents from being framed, not to fight crime by putting defendants away. Black juries will seldom convict on the basis of police evidence and prosecutorial argument alone. They require independent witnesses and a thoroughly investigated case. The fact that inner city juries are more likely to acquit explains, in my view, why charges against blacks are more likely to be dismissed. Prosecutors have learned that they have to present black juries with better evidence and, therefore, dismiss inner-city cases that they would be prepared to present to white juries.

White jurors need to wise up, too. The time has long passed since the calling of prosecutors and police was to serve justice. Today it is to serve career, and the two are often in conflict. It is a rare prosecutor these days who adheres to the old belief that it is better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent person to be convicted. Indeed, case after case indicates that prosecutors have no compunction about convicting the innocent.

Not even the police are safe from being framed. A recent front-page story in the Washington Times details the almost successful frame-up of Larry Neidig, a decorated 20-year veteran of the Fairfax County, Virginia, police department for sexually abusing his 11-year-old daughter. The case against Neidig has all the hallmarks of police and prosecutorial misconduct. It originated in hearsay, third-party accusations by an emotionally disturbed person. Instead of honestly investigating the charge, the police took Neidig's bewildered child into custody and used wrongful interview techniques designed to force her into saying what the police wanted in order to terminate the embarrassing and coercive ordeal. A notorious prosecution witness gave a wrongful diagnosis of penile penetration, while expert medical evidence proving Neidig's innocence was withheld by county officials.

It has recently come to light that the famed FBI forensic lab has been routinely contaminating, if not fabricating, evidence. When FBI scientist Frederic Whitehurst produced evidence that FBI lab personnel had a proclivity to produce the evidence that prosecutors wanted, he was placed on administrative leave and prevented from entering any FBI facility. He remains suspended even after a Justice Department investigation has vindicated him by finding 50 cases in which defendants may have been victims of wrongful evidence.

If the FBI had any integrity, White hurst would be put in charge of the crime lab. Of course, he won't be -- and that's why savvy black jurors don't trust prosecutors and police and insist on higher standards of justice than white juries require.

Paul Craig Roberts is a columnist for the Washington Times and is nationally syndicated.