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Roger Stone walks out of court arms raised despite federal indictments. Manafort is spared the indignity of wearing the orange jumpsuit to court despite being convicted. Sheriff Arpaio is granted a pardon by the Pres for crimes that degrade the very concept of law enforcement.
Cabinet secretaries lie to or mislead Congress and refuse to appear for oversight hearings. Judicial nominees are not truthful on their questionnaires (under penalty of perjury), mislead Congress in live testimony w/o consequence.
The President publicly taunts witnesses to criminal investigations , encourages investigation of the family of witnesses, denigrates specific federal judges, taunts, hounds & threatens to fire the Attorney General, fires the head of the FBI for investigating him.
Everyday Black ppl are threatened w/arrest, arrested & convicted for crimes large & small. The ofcr who killed Tamir Rice & his partner cuffed Rice’s distraught 14 year old sister & put her in the police car. Threatened to do the same to Rice’s mom if she didn’t stop screaming.
Sandra Bland was pulled over for failing to signal, menaced and arrested for talking back to an ofcr. She died in jail. Freddy Gray ran from police ofcrs. He was arrested & his back was broken while riding in the back of a police van.
Over 100,000 people are locked up in pre-trial detention (not convicted) in local jails in our country for drug charges on any given day. Over 200,000 for other non violent charges. Many will remain in jail for the crime of being too poor to make bail.
At every stage of interaction w /the criminal justice system, the inferences work against Black people, who are pulled over, searched, arrested, strip searched, shackled, paraded in the orange jumpsuit, and held in jails in numbers disproportionate to every other demographic.
What we are seeing today at the highest levels is a powerful indictment of our criminal justice system - a stark expose’ of what law and order really means in America.
It is also a challenge to those at the highest levels of our profession, many of whom built their early careers prosecuting Black & Brown people in a fundamentally unjust system, & who now stand silent as the rule of law is mocked at the highest levels by those entrusted to lead.
