Federal civil rights charges unlikely against police officer in Ferguson shooting

[blackspade]

153. And none of this in any way refutes my post.

Obviously, the wealthy have access to better representation. But it is also a fact that wealthy people are not charged at the same rates as the poor and minorities. Even when they are, they are granted novel defenses by prosecutors and judges that allow them to serve little or no time.

And I think that you are underestimating the effect that race and class impact the perceptions of jurors. While they may not be overtly racist, many jurors hold bigoted and stereotypical opinions about the poor and minorities that can have a dramatic impact on case outcome.

That minorities and women are represented in the justice system may be true, they are also part of a system that disproportionally indicts and imprisons the poor and minorities, while letting off privileged elites, including themselves, for crimes that would see common citizens behind bars.

That minorities and women are part of the justice system has obviously not made it more fair or rational. Instead they, like their white man predecessors, have been suborned into a system that perpetuates a power structure that suppresses minorities, the poor, and increasingly the middle class.