Obama Editorial: Injustices in the Criminal Justice System
Barack Obama wrote an editorial recently in the L.A. Sentinel. He wrote:
Recently, the Georgia Supreme Court intervened in the case of Genarlow Wilson, a twenty-one year old Georgia honor student who was sentenced to eleven years in prison—even though he didn’t even commit a felony. The court recognized that the case was outrageous, deemed Wilson’s punishment unconstitutional, and released him. As we celebrate this young man’s freedom, we must also to rededicate ourselves to the task of correcting the inequities in our criminal justice system that led to his ordeal.
Like Hurricane Katrina did with poverty, the case of Genarlow Wilson — much like that of the Jena 6 — exposed the glaring inequities in our justice system. They reminded us of the fact that we still have a system that locks away too many young, first-time, non-violent offenders for the better part of their lives. It reminds us that we have certain sentences that are based less on the kind of crime you commit than on what you look like and where you come from.
In America, nearly a third of African-American men will enter state or federal prison during their lives. Too many will be lost in the criminal justice system and end up in prison, poverty, and unemployment. In many cases, they will fail to become fully rehabilitated, and go on to commit more crimes.
Read more.
November 26, 2007 at 7:50 pm
WOW — WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA???
via Sullivan:
http://voteforhillaryonline.blogspot.com/2007/11/get-paid-to-post-positive-comments.html
November 26, 2007 at 8:08 pm
I was on jury duty today and was dismissed. I was asked if I was sure I could follow the letter of the law no matter what. The prosecutor’s example was “What would you do if a law was passed that made chocolate illegal? Would you uphold the law?” I said I thought that would be an absurd scenario — and I didn’t know if I could vote to convict for breaking an absurd law if I felt it was an unjust law. I confess the prosecutors stupid example brought the Genarlow Wilson case to mind. Up until that point, all the potential jurors polled said that the law was most important thing and of course they would follow the letter of the law. After my flub of the “correct” answer, several jurors started expressing nuance. All of us ended up being dismissed by the prosecution. Now I feel sorry for the defendant. Moral of the story: if you want to get out of jury duty, be honest, If you want to serve on a jury, don’t admit you see any shades of gray.
November 26, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Whoops –http://voteforhillaryonline.blogspot.com/2007/11/can-dictatorship-actually-be-good-form.html Ben Smith at Politico points out this article on the website shows the whole thing is a parody! Its very good — but I should have looked closer before linking. Still worth checking out for a laugh — and it makes some good points!
November 26, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Donna-
I think Obama’s editorial is a good idea. It’s not like race and racism isn’t going to become an issue in this campaign, probably soon if Obama keeps moving up. But my perspective is that of a person who attends a liberal church that has volunteers involved in a second chance type program (not me -so don’t know much about it.) Anyhow I have quit second guessing Barack’s campaign as they seem to know exactly what they’re doing.
BTW did you read more than a paragraph at voteforhillaryonline - it is a pretty hillarious spoof site.
Also sounds like you were willing to serve jury duty. I have lived/voted for 25 yrs in same state but have never been called.
November 27, 2007 at 5:15 pm
[...] when he was writing op-eds about injustices in the criminal justice [...]
March 2, 2008 at 9:28 am
Hello there.
Just found your site. Great job!
I like it much.
look here http://live.com