“Prosecutors admit that they routinely charge people with crimes for which they technically have probably cause but which they seriously doubt they could ever win in court.  They ‘load up’ defendants with charges that carry extremely harsh sentences in order to force them to plead guilty to lesser offenses and – here’s the kicker – to obtain testimony for a related case.  Harsh sentencing laws encourage people to snitch.” – The New Jim Crow

There was a story in our local news this spring/summer about a boy who was voted prom king and had a football scholarship to college.  And who was charged with 19 felonies for driving a car.  Oh and he was black, but you probably figured that out from the 19 felonies part.

He was the driver, but he wasn’t completely innocent.  He knew his friend had a gun.  He knew because he tried to get him to put it away when he saw him pull it out.  He tried to get him to put the gun away, this friend of his, that he only gave a ride to because he needed the gas money.  I mean really, who does that?  Criminals, that’s who.  Honest people don’t need money from their friends.

So the passenger in his car fired a gun out the window, and wouldn’t you know, he didn’t kill anyone?  Well ok, he hit a person in the foot.  But don’t worry.  He pled guilty to 4 different counts and got 20 years, 10 of them in prison.  That’s our justice system.  Working excessively hard to keep us free of black people on the streets.

So if the shooter – who didn’t really hurt anyone that bad – was punished harshly, then of course 19 felonies is too many for the driver, who apparently did nothing wrong.  Completely reasonable people can see that 19 felonies is ridiculous.  That it’s not very just.

So that’s why they dropped 15 of them.  15, you guys.  Aren’t they generous?  Ignore the fact that they threaten that the charges could be brought back at any time.  I assume they mean if the 4 felonies don’t stick, then the 15 will be called up.  The justice system has to do whatever it can to keep black bodies off our Anglo-American streets.  Obviously.

4 felonies for driving a car.  Justice system my ass.

It is unfair.

It is excessive.

It is because they are black.

*****

There’s a victim of domestic abuse.  A woman who has had enough.  She fires a gun at her ex-husband.  Injures no one.

A warning shot.  Injuring no one.

And yet she is arrested, and is now awaiting trial, waiting for our Anglo-American justice system to deliver her a 60 year sentence.

60 fucking years for a warning shot.

“Though it is not widely known, the prosecutor is the most powerful law enforcement official in the criminal justice system….It is the prosecutor, far more than any other criminal justice official, who holds the keys to the jail house door.

…Few rules constrain the exercise of his or her discretion.  The prosecutor is free to dismiss a case for any reason or no reason at all.  The prosecutor is also free to file more charges against a defendant than can realistically be proven in court, so long as probably cause arguably exists – a practice known as overcharging.” – The New Jim Crow

I don’t know what else to say.  It is an unbelievably unfair situation.  It is so obvious that this is excessive injustice.

It feels completely hopeless.  That no one cares.

Which makes me wonder what can be done.

How do we hold prosecutors accountable?

Our ‘justice’ system is biased, punitive, and grossly unfair.  How do you begin to change that?

When felonies are handed out like candy, when lives are ruined solely because they are black, and this has become so normalized that white people are immunized to it – when white people can choose to look away, can choose to ignore, can refuse to understand the history that makes all of this possible………

I have nothing else.  Stories like this trigger PTSD for me.  I can’t stand such obvious injustice and the obliviousness of people.  I get incredibly angry and incoherent and I freeze.

I don’t know what it will take for white people to wake up to the fact that just because we call it a justice system doesn’t make it so.

It is infuriating that a woman is facing 60 years for firing a warning shot and people  all over the country are not rising up in protest.

I have nothing else right now.

Just anger.

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