The system in not inherently unfair to African Americans charged with a criminal violation. It is unfair to defendants who can not afford counsel of their choice, whether it is an economically dis-advantaged white, black,
or Latino.

Cleo Washington '85
Indiana State Senator and Defense Lawyer

Yes, I believe there are some law enforcement biases toward some demographic groups. But I also believe that as long as each officer sublimates his personal prejudices, the institutionally developed biases actually serve to protect the officer during the course of his or her duties.

Richard J. Moak '69

I think a better question to ask in connection with the OJ verdict, and this question assumes OJ's guilt, which I believe is beyond question, is: Do we have two systems of justice in America, one for the rich and one for everybody else?

Todd Shellenbarger '87
Deputy Prosecutor

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Winter 1999

Law & Order in America:
"Remarkable Progress" or the Calm Before the Storm
An online forum on the U.S. criminal justice system

Question 4: Public fallout from the O.J. Simpson case indicated a discrepancy between African-Americans' and whites' perception of the fairness of the criminal justice system.Is the criminal justice system unfair to African-Americans or other minorities? If so, have you seen any steps being taken to right this? What accounts for the discrepancy in points of view?

The system is not inherently unfair to African Americans charged with a criminal violation. It is unfair to defendants who can not afford counsel of their choice, whether it is an economically disadvantaged white, black, or Latino.

A disproportionate number of African Americans remain at the lower end of the socio-economic scale, a legacy of racism and discrimination (unless you prescribe to the Bell Curve), and therefore a perception remains within the black community that the system is unfair.

However, in my capacity as a defense lawyer I have had numerous occasions where white members of the voir dire expressed honestly held beliefs, regarding credibility, that they could not believe a black person over a white person.

One way to improve the system is to have more minority lawyers, judges and, most importantly, jurors. Most jurisdictions select jury lists from voter registration lists. There should be consideration given to expanding the list by allowing the Bureau of Motor Vehicle list of registered drivers to be used.

Cleo Washington '85
Indiana State Senator and Defense Lawyer

Regarding your question: Is there a bias against minorities within the law enforcement communities? Again, I can only express my own opinions, which are not to be considered representative of my or any other law enforcement agency.

To paraphrase what our former sheriff used to say when facing criticism about the actions of some of his deputies, we are forced to hire our personnel from within the ranks of the human race. Everyone brings a certain amount of personal baggage with them to any job, and law enforcement is no different. Part of the mission of any professional law enforcement organization is to do the best job possible in its hiring practices to recruit ethical persons with good common sense, then provide the best training, followed by strong supervision and progressive management from the leadership of the organization. When this is done, it is not only possible, but very probable that the officers in that organization will act responsibly and professionally with fairness and even compassion toward the public, regardless of the individual prejudices they may have.

That having been said, I believe each law enforcement agency is an individual community with its own institutional biases based on the demographics of crime within the communities it serves. And those biases can and do change as the crime demographics evolve. When I first started in law enforcement some 24 years ago, I believe that I was virtually devoid of any prejudices or biases based on a person's race or ethnicity. But the first 5 years that I spent working in the county jail and doing prisoner transportation forced me to develop some biases based on the demographics of the inmate population, which I believe are necessary for officer survival. At that time the black gangs, like the Crips and Bloods, had developed into the major law enforcement problems for the greater Los Angeles area before they started to transplant themselves and their criminal enterprises across the rest of the country. With a jail inmate population at that time having a higher percentage of young black males over all other demographic groups, a new deputy sheriff on street patrol would have been foolish not to be more cautious and vigilant for his own protection while working in the communities where those demographics predominate or when meeting that profile in the course of one's duties.

Now the demographics have changed. In 1999 the largest demographic groups within the Los Angeles County jail system are Hispanic at 46%, followed by Black at 33.1%, White at 17.1% and with all other classified groups rounding out the remaining 3.8%. If I were working street patrol now, my professional "bias" for both officer survival and the scrutiny to unfold criminal behavior would be directed more toward young male Hispanics, who, along with certain gang clothing or other common profile identifiers, would raise my level of caution and control during such law enforcement contacts. And, to be very clear, this professional bias would be essentially the same for all officers, whether Black or Hispanic or White.

Is this a problem to be addressed? That remains arguable. As a law enforcement manager, I want all personnel to be fair, impartial and professional in all contacts with the public. But above all, I want my deputies to go safely home to their families at the end of each shift. As an institution, my department, like the other large police agency in Los Angeles County, has made many changes in the way we do business subsequent to the Rodney King incident and the LA Riots. The Christopher Commission made sweeping recommendations for the LAPD, and the Kolts Commission made similar recommendations for the LASD. I think most of the recommendations (almost all of which have already been implemented) were good for law enforcement in spite of the diverted efforts and expense to implement them.

We now maintain computer databases on all personnel to track such risk management issues as citizen complaints, uses of force, civil claims, lawsuits, as well as public commendations for jobs well done. Every use of force must be documented by a supervisor's report, along with audio or videotaped interviews of suspects and witnesses. The majority of patrol deputies are now carrying voice-activated microcassette recorders on their belts to document all citizen encounters, which both forces them to maintain their professionalism as well as having the positive impact of protecting most of them from false allegations of misconduct. In fact, false allegations by criminal suspects and even citizen traffic violators had become so prevalent, that the state legislature finally passed a law making it a crime to falsely accuse a peace officer of misconduct. We have now had many successful prosecutions based on evidence from belt recorders and the sound activated surveillance cameras that we have installed in all of our station jail booking areas.

So to summarize: Yes, I believe there are some law enforcement biases toward some demographic groups. But I also believe that as long as each officer sublimates his personal prejudices, the institutionally developed biases actually serve to protect the officer during the course of his or her duties. Southern California law enforcement comprises the complete spectrum of genders, races and ethnicities, and all officers quickly learn that they must work together as a team. One of my favorite recruitment posters that I believe depicts this concept quite well is one in which the LAPD depicts a group of men and women of various ethnic groups and has the caption: All our officers are blue.

Lt. Richard J. Moak '69
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department

I think a better question to ask in connection with the OJ verdict, and this question assumes OJ's guilt, which I believe is beyond question, is: Do we have two systems of justice in America, one for the rich and one for everybody else?

Countless African-Americans have been sent to prison for life on 10% of the evidence offered against Simpson by majority African-American juries. Those defendants may be guilty, like Simpson, but they did not have the resources to create false doubts using experts who tailor their "scientific" opinions to fit the needs of the man they were hired to defend.

I think one could use the Simpson case to argue for a reform that would allow a judge in a criminal case to call his own neutral expert to resolve any dispute between the competing experts called by the parties, and to instruct the jurors that they should give the most weight to the Court's expert. Maybe such a change would reduce the risk of a defendant buying a verdict.

Todd Shellenbarger '87
Deputy Prosecutor

I truly hope that the O.J. Simpson trial was an anomaly and not a reflection of the current state of the criminal justice system. I know this case has been and will continue to be discussed ad nauseam in legal and media circles, but I want to give a brief picture of the Simpson trial from t

he perspective of one involved in providing its security for the better part of a year. Los Angeles County is divided into many judicial districts. A "jury of one's peers" is essentially assembled from the available jury pool from the judicial district in which a trial is held. In most cases that will be the same district where the crime occurred.

The Simpson trial was initially scheduled for the West Los Angeles District, because that is where the crime occurred. The District Attorney chose to move it to the Criminal Courts building in downtown Los Angeles which is part of the Central District. From the beginning everyone knew that this trial was going to take a long time, be very expensive, and that it was going to be prosecuted on circumstantial and physical evidence which was going to bring in many technical experts to argue scientific minutiae, including DNA evidence for which there were limited legal precedents at the time. The West Los Angeles Judicial District comprises a generally highly educated and upper socioeconomic demographic population. The Central Judicial District comprises generally the opposite.

The jury had to be sequestered at a major downtown hotel for the entire trial with security around the clock. Several identical convoys of blacked-out vans and pursuit cars would have to enter and leave the courthouse in different directions with additional units for tactical interference to prevent media crews from finding out exactly where they were staying. Hollywood celebrities wanted to participate by offering free entertainment for the sequestered jurors on the weekends or off evenings. A full-time media liaison was necessary to arrange for locations for private entertainment programs and to obtain blocks of tickets for events in secret, so jurors could be entertained without the media knowing about it. We once cancelled a performance by a well-known actress, when her publicist violated the agreement not to release any information about the performance and its location until after it was over. So, jury (and media) misconduct was a major concern from the very beginning.

Almost at the onset, the judge received information about some possible improprieties. He received two full-time sheriff's detectives assigned to him to investigate each allegation. By the time the trial ended, I believe we were down to the final alternate juror before a potential mistrial. The irony is that several jurors who were found to have been taking notes or caught in unauthorized communications for an eventual book deal may have been more capable of understanding the highly technical circumstantial evidence than those who remained

So did this trial reveal a racial fault line? Perhaps. But I think the limited educational background of jury members combined with the uncontrolled, show atmosphere of the trial were greater factors in contributing to the end result.

Richard Moak '69
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department

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